Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs in Toronto to speak to RBC annual shareholders meeting

Published by Brent Patterson on

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Photo from IndyBay.org.

Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs travelled from their unceded territories in northern British Columbia to Tkaronto to speak to the RBC annual shareholders meeting about that bank’s financing of the Coastal GasLink (CGL) fracked gas pipeline now being constructed on their territory without free, prior and informed consent.

But on the morning of the shareholders meeting, the Unist’ot’en Camp tweeted: “RBC canceled the entire in person part of their AGM in Toronto today, in order to prevent Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs from attending.”

Stand.earth explains:

“With an estimated $6.6 billion CAD price tag, RBC is the top commercial bank providing the Coastal GasLink pipeline with working capital, while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline, despite lacking consent from Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs.”

They also highlight:

“At a February 25 landmark meeting between Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and RBC executives, Chiefs closed with a gut wrenching video of the years of police violence, arrests, raids, and harassment which continues to this day.

The RBC-financed Coastal GasLink pipeline has brought a rise in police violence against Indigenous land and water defenders, with Canadian federal police spending topping $21 million CAD in Wet’suwet’en territory alone.”

The Coastal GasLink pipeline is being built by Calgary-based TC Energy.

Gidimt’en Checkpoint also retweeted this Banking on a Better Future tweet that reports: “@RBC shareholders have voted to re-elect all 13 current directors, including Thierry Vandal, who sits on the board of @TCEnergy. Reminder: not only does RBC finance TC Energy’s CGL pipeline, it shares executive membership with them.”

This occurs at a pivotal time.

On February 6, the Terrace Standard reported: “Coastal GasLink has resumed preparations to tunnel under the Morice River [Wedzin Kwa].” At that time, a CGL spokesperson said: “Preparation work has resumed over this past month. We expect that the micro-drilling will take place starting this spring.”

PBI-Canada was present on Wet’suwet’en territories in November 2021.

We continue to follow this situation.

Photo: Among the solidarity actions across the country today, there was this protest at an RBC branch in Ottawa.

Stand.earth image.


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