FOLLOW UP TO RBC AGM – AN OPEN LETTER

Please review the open letter here. Please sign on using this google form.

As many of you may recall, last month, the Royal Bank of Canada, held their annual shareholder meeting. It was a debacle. The bank held their AGM in Saskatoon – a small town in central Canada – after fleeing Toronto where AGMs are usually held. Delegates to the meeting were met with a heavy police and security presence including police snipers.

RBC attempted to segregate Indigenous, Black and People of Colour to a separate room at the meeting despite those delegates having valid proxies and having given advance notice of their attendance at the meeting – having travelled many thousands of kilometres to attend. Virtually all questions and statements at the meeting, which received wide media coverage, were in regards to the bank’s dealings with frontline communities and their awful climate record.

RBC used a reserve and segregation system for this meeting, based on colour-coded passes, resulting in clear discrimination towards this delegation. When called out on their racism, security on site put their hands on and pushed several Indigenous delegates including a hereditary chief and elder.

The delegates (see below names) are sending an open letter to RBC on June 5 demanding an apology and action to ensure this never happens again, two months after the April 5 AGM held in Saskatoon.

Organizations, groups, communities, and individuals across Turtle Island and beyond are encouraged to sign on and share in solidarity and to help keep awareness and pressure on the world’s top fossil fuel financier.

Please review the open letter here. Please sign on using this google form.

BIPOC and climate delegation and signatories of the open letter:

Hereditary Chief Na’Moks, John Ridsdale
Na’Moks and Kweese Houses
T’sayu Clan, Wet’suwet’en

Hereditary Chief Gisdaywa, Fred Tom
Kaiyexweniits House
Gidimt’en Clan, Wet’suwet’en

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip
Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC)

Eve Saint
Finance Campaigner, Gidimt’en Checkpoint

Janet Bazil
Wet’suwet’en elder

Jocelyn Alec
Wet’suwet’en youth delegate

Shaylee Holland
Wet’suwet’en youth delegate

Kolin Sutherland Wilson
Gitxsan land and water protector

Roishetta Ozane
The Vessel Project and The Gulf Fossil Finance Coordinator for Texas Campaign for The Environment

Vanessa Gray
Divestment Campaign Coordinator, Indigenous Climate Action

Richard Brooks
Climate Finance Director, Stand.earth

Eugene Kung
Counsel for UBCIC

Chris Mohan
Ivey Business School Student, Banking on a Better Future

Louis Ramirez
Decolonial Solidarity