Members of Climate Justice UBC (CJUBC) sat in at the RBC in the Nest during the afternoon on March 7 to protest the bank’s investment in fossil fuels and companies complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine.
The protest is part of a day of action organized by Change Course, coordinated with another simultaneous protest occurring at UBC Okanagan. Protestors sat on the floor inside the bank and read aloud a letter to RBC CEO David McKay asking the bank to divest from the TMX and Coastal GasLink pipelines and weapons manufacturers, including Palantir.
“Palantir also accepted Project Maven, which is a project that Google employees walked off the job to protest, as it's going to potentially lead to unmanned drones for the American military,” said CJUBC coordinator Vedin Schimmack, who is a second-year science student.
“Showing up to their on-campus branches, educating people about their funding [of] illegal projects is important,” said Schimmack. “It undermines their credibility when they try to greenwash themselves saying that they care about the environment.”
After half an hour, the RCMP arrived, and told protestors not to block the entrance. The protestors complied, and the RCMP left. Soon after, the RBC branch partially closed the metal grate, although it fully reopened later in the day.
“One of the things that the RBC on campus branches do is that they … often attract international students who are not familiar with the Canadian banking landscape,” said Schimmack. To counter this, CJUBC passed out fliers with instructions for switching to a credit union.
“Credit unions are much more ethical,” said Schimmack.
“They often invest in green energy projects, they invest in community spaces, they often invest in housing coops as well as affordable housing projects, which are better for students in the long run.”