7 minute read
Commentary
McGill’s Alliance with RBC
Canada’s big banks fund fossil fuels
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Una Sverko Commentary Contributor
Last week (of October 16), 12 student groups across socalled Canada held actions to protest banks’ presence on their campuses.
We already know many unsavoury things about our university: that its history is one of slavery and colonialism and that its present is one of investments in fossil fuels. Little attention, however, has been given to McGill’s ongoing alliance with banks, an alliance that is strengthening not only in the administration, but also in faculties, faculty associations, student groups, and our student unions.
The most prevalent bank on our campus is Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) banks with them, they sponsored frosh for the Faculty of Arts and Science, they are currently sponsoring a class in the Faculty of Management, and they have had a steady presence at career events on campus.
Canada’s largest banks – RBC, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC, and TD – are notorious for their ongoing investments in fossil fuel expansion. In the past few years, RBC in particular has come under fire for being a lead financier of the Trans Mountain (TMX) and Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipelines, passing through the territories of Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en peoples, respectively, without legitimate consent. RBC is investing $262 billion directly into the fossil fuel industry since signing the Paris Agreement in 2015. They have indicated no signs of slowing their involvement in the fossil fuel sector.
In other words, Canada’s banks are actively funding both climate change and modern day colonialism in Canada, specifically through ongoing Indigenous land dispossession, denial of Indigenous sovereignty, denying the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous peoples and violating international, Indigenous, and human rights.
For RBC to be investing so much in students, we must be doing something for them. One thing we’re doing, of course, is putting our funds in RBC accounts which RBC then uses to finance projects like TMX and CGL. Another benefit is that we are part of their talent pipeline, which funnels students in their direction in exchange for sponsorships and banking privileges. Furthermore, it is an ethical concern when the SSMU associates with and supports institutions whose values are Olivia Shan| Managing Editor
opposed to those of the students they supposedly represent. Students have made their values clear by pushing bills for better climate and solidarity policies such as the Climate Justice Policy (2019), Divest for Human Rights Policy (2021), and Indigenous Solidarity Policy (2021), among others. RBC stands for the exact opposite, regardless of the socially benevolent public image they tirelessly try to maintain.
As students we have unique influence over these corporate giants and we can pressure them to do better. Universities collectively pour billions of dollars into banks (McGill has $13.1 million invested in RBC as of June 2022, more in other banks). They lend an aura of legitimacy to banks’ reputations by allowing banks to sponsor events and classes at institutions that are respected as pillars of progress, knowledge, and truth.
If universities across the country were to show their displeasure with banks’ practices by threatening to pull their funding from the banks, we would be a force to be reckoned with.
What’s more, we do actually have the option to pull money out of RBC. As of 2021, SSMU had $9 million of investments that could be moved to a credit union (which incorporate members’ voices in their governance structures, typically invest in local businesses, and tend to focus on environmental/social good). This would show big banks like RBC that we mean it when we say we’ll stop being their customers if they don’t change their practices.
Universities and student unions alone may or may not be able to unilaterally pressure banks to pull their money out of fossil fuel expansion and colonial pipelines. We don’t really know. But the good news is that the push for universities and student unions to pull money out of these banks is only one part of a nation-wide strategy to target banks at all levels. Banks’ reputations, shareholders, prospective and current employees, current and future customers, AGMs, and board members are all under pressure from NGOs, grassroots groups, and Land Defenders. With all of these strategies combined, we have the opportunity to force the banks to stop financing climate destruction and colonial violence once and for all.
8October 24, 2022 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily COMMENTARY
From the Archives: Remembering Resistance
The legacy of protest in support of Iranian women
Photo taken at the October 1, 2022 protest Vishwa Srinivasan | Photos Contributor
Melanie Newton From the Daily Archives
content warning: suicide
*This article comes from The Daily Archives, originally published March 24, 1994. Last week, The Daily published a piece titled “Thousands Gather in Support of Iranian Womens’ Rights” covering the recent protests in response to the killing of 22-year old Mahsa (Jina) Amini by Iran’s “morality police.” The article references this 1994 piece. The Daily wants to highlight the legacy of protest in Iran and the importance of documenting women’s activism.
Although the international press has so far been quiet about the incident, earlier this month an Iranian woman killed herself in a public square, as a protest against the repression of women in Iran.
Shouting “Long live Iran! Death to dictatorship!” Dr. Homa Darabi, a lecturer at the University of Tehran, walked into a public square, doused her body with gasoline and burned herself in the street. The exact date and circumstances of the protest are not clear.
“Fatima”, an Iranian woman living in Montréal, said Darabi’s protest comes after several incidents of political violence against women in Iran.
She said that, some months ago, a woman was shot by the police in a phone booth because she was “not appropriately dressed.” Women have also been arrested and beaten for infractions like having a lock of hair showing beneath their chador (head cover).
“This policy is purely tactical because every time there is an economic or political problem the government cracks down on women who are not ‘properly’ covered. Hence the population is worried about this instead of more important issues,” said Fatima.
“Alia”, another Iranian woman, agrees. “She didn’t go into her room, lock her door and just leave a note for her family. She did this in a public place so it’s a political act. She wanted to show that women are unhappy politically and socially in Iran.”
In the 1970s, the Americansupported Shah tried to ban chadors, and large numbers of women demonstrated. The 1979 revolution which overthrew the Shah allowed conservative elements in society to gain greater control.
Although the government has praised women for the crucial role they played in overthrowing the Shah, it has since reneged on advances promised during the revolution.
“There are religious women who believe in the chador. That is their opinion and they are respected for it. But the problem is that the government takes away the choice to decide whether to cover one’s head or not,” said Fatima.
Both Fatima and Alia believe the North American media is aware of Darabi’s action, but so far, except for one spot on the local Persian news, the media in Canada has kept silent.
The Western media is ignoring this incident because they don’t see it as important, says Alia. She feels the Western media is content to hold onto the stereotypical “submissive” image that it has of Iranian women.
And she thinks, if the West really had a commitment to promoting human rights, at least one government would have tried to change the situation of Iranian women.
“Terrorizing Iranian women helps the fundamentalist government’s hold on the people. The women have less freedom and self expression, and in the eyes of the Western world they seem to be passive, powerless and ignorant. When North American television shows crowds of women wearing the black chador, people here assume that the women are all the same - educated and complacent wives,” says Fatima.
She says she hopes Darabi’s death will be recognized for the political statement that it was, and that people recognize that the oppression of women is not only taking place in Iran.
“Homa Darabi’s death was a political statement that should not be ignored. Hopefully by giving her life, she may be saving others and it shouldn’t be localized to just Iran. Her line was ‘long live Iran, death to dictatorship!’ The point is the situation for her was getting intolerable. She died for a cause, it was a movement,” says Fatima.
