I’ve been a volunteer with For Our Kids Toronto for the last 2 years. In recent years, I’ve been really frightened by the extreme weather events Toronto has been experiencing, including flooding and thick wildfire smoke. As a chronically-ill Mom, looking to be part of the solution, I’m always looking for actions I can take that go into “set-it-and-forget-it” mode.
I recently switched to a sustainable credit union, and that got me interested in the For Our Kids banking campaign. That is how I learnt that Canada’s big banks are financing oil companies to the tune of billions of dollars despite having net-zero plans in place. They are banking on climate chaos and, most frustratingly, they are misleading the public about their actions.
Last summer, a few members of the Toronto For Our Kids group took our kids and protested outside of Bank of Montreal. BMO says it wants to “Boldly grow the good” but it invests billions more in oil than clean energy. We specifically targeted the CEO Darryl White because we heard he may be more willing to take action than other CEOs, and he’s a fellow parent.
We planned a kid-friendly action with popsicles, music, sidewalk chalk and fun outfits. We handed out info flyers and postcards to passersby and BMO employees going for lunch.
At the end of the hour-long protest we delivered a letter, signed by lots of other Canadian climate organizations, to the BMO front desk with our demands. We asked BMO to create more ambitious renewable energy targets, develop a credible climate transition plan, and implement a policy of free, prior and informed consent for any projects on Indigenous territory. We also demanded they drop their association with anti-climate lobbying groups, like the Canadian Association for Petroleum Producers.
We asked for a meeting with executives and, in November, a group of For Our Kids parents met with the head of the BMO Climate Institute, Michael Torrance. It was an interesting meeting, though we didn’t get a lot of straight answers.
When we asked Torrance to explain BMO’s sponsorship of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) conference over the last few years, he was unable to respond. CAPP is known for greenwashing, pushing false solutions and lobbying against climate action. Scotiabank dropped its sponsorship of CAPP after pressure from Greenpeace a few years ago, so it’s surprising and hugely disappointing that BMO would pick it up.
If BMO were to drop its sponsorship of CAPP, this would be a good start in showing parents they are serious about climate change.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if corporations did the right thing to give our children a livable future rather than prioritize shareholder returns?
For Valentine’s this year, what I really want is for BMO to actually grow the good and break up with CAPP!
This blog was written by Kate Mills (pictured above), a mom of two kids and member of For Our Kids Toronto.
