Dave McKay gets award he deserves
This week dozens of youth from Banking on a Better Future and others organized a rally outside the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where RBC’s CEO, Dave McKay, was receiving the Ivey “Business Leader of the Year” award.
As Canada’s biggest funder of fossil fuels, people were there to make clear to Mr McKay that the only award he deserves is the #ClimateVillainoftheYear award!
The rally was covered by BlogTO, who have some great photos:
It wasn’t a can of soup or a plate of mashed potatoes thrown at a priceless work of art, but rather an inflatable flaming effigy that served as a prop during the latest display of climate activism on the streets of downtown Toronto on Thursday.
A group of activists representing a handful of organizations took to the streets with a display outside of the Ivey Business School’s presentation to RBC CEO Dave McKay with the ‘Business Leader of the Year Award’ in an attempt to disrupt the corporate event hosted at the Ritz-Carlton Toronto.
In place of the honour bestowed on McKay by the corporate elite, the activists from the University of Toronto, Banking on a Better Future, Climate Justice TO, and Stand.Earth awarded the executive a very different honour, dubbing the 58-year-old executive as ‘Climate Villain of the Year Award.’
Ivey is the business school at Western University, and there were a few great stories about a letter that many current and former faculty and students sent questioning why someone so responsible for destroying our future could be given such an award.
The London Free Press had this to say:
Some Ivey Business School students are chafing that Royal Bank of Canada’s top boss will receive the school’s prestigious business leader award Thursday, a day after a scathing review of the bank’s emission targets by a group of Indigenous and environmental groups was released.
Chris Mohan is a fifth-year Western University computer software and Ivey student. He has penned an open letter pointing out a “contradiction” in presenting Dave McKay with the award, which had been postponed from 2020 due to COVID-19.