On March 20, Divest McGill, Climate Justice Montreal, and other local climate activist organizations held a protest as part of Change Course’s National Day of Action, demanding that Canada’s “Big Five” banks remove their presence on Canadian campuses until they meet several conditions. Among these are the cancellation of finances for pipelines like the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT), a commitment to avoid financing future fossil fuel projects, and a promise to gain free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous groups before any future financing decisions concerning resource extraction.
The protest, which gathered several dozen people, departed from the Roddick Gates at 4:30 p.m. and travelled along Boulevard Robert-Bourassa until reaching the Montreal headquarters of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). There, protestors played music, chanted, and wrote messages in chalk on the sidewalk as RBC employees and clients walked around them to make their way to their cars or offices.
Nicola Chevallier, a representative from Climate Justice Montreal, spoke to The Tribune about the importance of calling out the environmentally harmful actions of banks like RBC.
“We’re here to tell RBC and all the banks that they shouldn’t fund fossil fuels, and that includes liquified natural gas, which might not sound as terrible as oil from the tar sands, but is just as bad in its process of production and its production of methane,” Chevallier said. “Today, we’re hoping to have some visibility around RBC and make it clear that they are not a clean company, neither on climate nor on human rights or Indigenous rights.”
Chevallier added that the protest was targeting RBC specifically because of the bank’s marketing towards students, for instance with their on-campus ATMs.
“[These initiatives] make it seem as if they are there for the youth, but in reality, they are the biggest funder of fossil fuels in so-called Canada,” Chevallier said. “So how could they be there for the youth when they are actively destroying the environment and our futures?”
An attendee of the protest who wished to remain unnamed commented on the outcomes of RBC funding fossil fuel projects like the PRGT, which would transport liquefied natural gas 800 kilometres from northeastern B.C. to the province’s northwestern coast.
“This has terrible repercussions for Indigenous peoples who still inhabit their land, as most pipelines go through unceded territories and reservations,” they told The Tribune. “We’re trying to show here today that we want them to get off these lands and stop profiting from the oil and gas industry.”
In a speech in front of the RBC building, Tamara Ghandour, U3 Science and a Divest McGill representative, called out six specific strategies that large banks use to ensure that funding for projects like this continues, including working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to apply pressure against protestors, lobbying the government for weaker climate measures, and increasing the efficiency of technology to extract resources.
Divest McGill achieved one of its foundational goals when McGill committed to divest from their direct holdings in publicly traded fossil fuel companies on the Carbon Underground 200 list in February 2024. But the March 20 action made it clear that the organization will continue to take action against environmentally destructive investments, both on campus and in broader Montreal.
“For many generations, the people of this land have endured physical and cultural violence at the hands of settlers,” Ghandour said during their speech. “We continue to witness the repression of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island with ongoing pipeline projects that seek to erase Indigenous livelihoods by extracting from their lands and suppress their voices by criminalizing land defence.”
