Climate activists protest RBC's fossil fuel investments

Climate activists met outside a Royal Bank branch in Halifax on Saturday to protest the financial institution's investment in fossil fuel projects.

According to a press release, the activists joined thousands of protesters across Canada for what they called Fossil Fools Day.

The press release said the aim was to highlight how RBC's policies have failed to respect Indigenous sovereignty and are fuelling the climate crisis.

Groups involved in the protest include Decolonial Solidarity Halifax, Mi'kmaw Grassroots Grandmothers, Sierra Club, School Strike for Climate, Ecology Action Centre and Council of Canadians.

Deborah Luscomb, media liaison for the event, said that the protest was specifically to show support for the Wet'suwet'en territory in northwestern B.C. in its dispute over the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

"RBC is part of a huge colonizing machine in Canada, the biggest funder of fossil fuels in Canada," she said in an interview. "Canada is the biggest funder of fossil fuels in the world."

The press release states that "RBC continues to fund projects in Canada and around the world that lack free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples, and fuelling the climate crisis as the world's 5th largest financier of fossil fuels." 

"RBC talks, you know, they have a good talk about the climate and the environment and our Indigenous brothers and sisters, but their actions belie that talk," Luscomb said in the interview. "They put their money into damage. They put their money into power. They put their money into getting richer."

She said that the protest was meant to raise awareness and to request RBC to side with Indigenous communities and environmental needs.  

Event organizer Andrew Glencross said the Coastal GasLink project would not exist without RBC money.

"The Royal Bank's role in all of this is that they are the money and that's why we're focusing on them," he said. "The only way we can force them to change their ways is to tarnish their image as a politically neutral organization."

RBC said in an email that it is "committed to achieving net-zero in its lending by 2050" and has established interim emissions reduction targets "that will help us drive action and measure progress."