We are members of Divest McGill, and we’re here as part of our Fossil Free Week. We are students and faculty from departments across the university; we come from different backgrounds, have varied fields of study, and range widely in our experiences with activism. What has brought us together is a common recognition of the serious threat posed by climate change, and of our collective responsibility to act. As members of the McGill community and individuals living in an era of unprecedented environmental and social challenges, we are united in demanding that this institution act boldly in the face of the climate crisis.

Students, faculty, and alumni at McGill University have been campaigning for fossil fuel divestment for nearly three years. In February of this year, we submitted a second petition and research brief to the Board of Governors, signed by more than 1,700 McGill community members and endorsed by an open letter from over 120 McGill faculty and librarians. By withdrawing investments from fossil fuel companies, McGill would join over 400 other institutions worldwide in helping to stigmatize the industry’s immoral business plan and its corrupting influence on public policy.

Six months after our second submission, the Board has provided no indication of how it plans to proceed, despite repeated calls for transparency and timeliness in addressing this issue. It is in light of these delays that we are spending our nights sleeping in Community Square, in front of the James Administration building, calling on the Board to immediately freeze all new investments in fossil fuels while its members deliberate on full divestment. The McGill community needs more than just words from Board members to demonstrate that they are acting in good faith and considering the question of divestment with the seriousness it deserves.

By acknowledging the climate science, but refusing to accept its clear implications, the Board is displaying a dangerous type of wilful ignorance that calls the efficacy of its governance seriously into question.

Following in the footsteps of a long history of social movements, we are pushing the bounds of our comfort zones, and respectfully but firmly showing the Board that the climate movement is here to stay, and only getting stronger. We are doing so to challenge the decision-makers to act – to make a decision that will place McGill on the right side of history. We know that the climate crisis cannot wait for the kind of delay that the Board is epitomizing with almost three years of deliberation. And we know that to overcome the status quo at McGill, and in society at large, we need to continue building a strong movement for climate justice.

Today, September 21, marks the one-year anniversary of the People’s Climate March. In 2014, we saw countless people taking part in over 5,000 different events in 190 countries around the world. The largest, in New York City, brought out over 400,000 people to march to demand action on climate change, and here in Montreal, thousands came out despite the rain. Perhaps the most notable and resounding success of these marches was their explicit effort to highlight the intersectionality of environmental, social, and economic justice. Frontline communities, faith-based organizations, labour unions, youth, working people, and marginalized peoples across the planet are building strong and resilient movements that can join together to overcome the many challenges faced by our communities, and many groups and individuals are working to do the same at McGill.

Here, we are taking action together because we care about keeping our communities and our environment safe – but it’s about so much more than that. We are camping out because we have seen fossil fuel companies violate Indigenous rights for decades. We are camping out because international climate negotiations have failed to produce meaningful outcomes for longer than some of us have been alive. We are camping out because we have seen poor and marginalized communities suffer the most from climate catastrophes while contributing least to the problem. We are camping out because we know that fossil fuel emissions are detrimental to our health. Ultimately, we are camping out because we, as members of the McGill community, know that McGill can do so much better.

McGill might be ranked as the best university in Canada, but does that alone make it an educational institution that we should be proud of? By not divesting, McGill is ignoring its own scientists and researchers who have highlighted the dire nature of the climate crisis and the need to freeze tar sand expansion. It is clear that our university’s Board of Governors is not acting in line with the urgency that this crisis merits, nor the transparency that the community deserves. By acknowledging the climate science, but refusing to accept its clear implications, the Board is displaying a dangerous type of wilful ignorance that calls the efficacy of its governance seriously into question. The scientific analysis and the moral imperative are both resoundingly clear: full fossil fuel divestment is the bare minimum of what must be done.

So, we are camping out, and we invite you to join us. It’s time that the McGill administration stood with the community, instead of with fossil fuel corporations.

The following members of Divest McGill signed on to this article: Emily Boytinck, Joey Broda, Julianna Duholke, Ellen Gillies, Victor Frankel, Sarah Mitchell, Chloé Laflamme, Kristen Perry, Sam Quigley.

To contact Divest McGill, email divestmcgill@gmail.com. Fossil Free Week events will be held in Community Square from September 21 to 25. See fossilfreeweek.com for the full schedule.

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Disappointingly, later that month, CAMSR rejected the call for McGill to take a strong stance in fighting climate change and challenging the social license of the fossil fuel industry. The devastating effects of climate change largely driven by the industry, including the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, were deemed to fall outside of their definition of social injury. However, the BoG expressed gratitude that Divest McGill had brought to light shortfalls in the CAMSR process, and pointed to the Terms of Reference review in Fall 2013 as an opportunity for improvement.

Let’s take a step back, and acknowledge the encouraging fact that McGill has an ethical investment review process at all. In discussion with other fossil fuel divestment campaigns, students often only get the board’s attention by angrily banging on the door. It’s similarly notable that CAMSR acted transparently and released the report outlining the reasons for their rejection.

Divest McGill presented extensive research of climate wreckage, distorted science, and destruction of Indigenous communities at the hands of the fossil fuel industry. We demonstrated that should the industry burn more than one fifth of its current carbon reserves, it would throw our planet into climate chaos. We came with overwhelming community support, including mandates from all three major student unions, multiple endorsements, and over 1,200 signatures from students, staff, faculty, and alumni.

This process made it clear that there are big holes to be filled in the CAMSR process. With no documentation of independent research or corroboration, their report claimed that Divest McGill had presented “no evidence of social injury.” CAMSR specifically pointed to a lack of court findings that social injury had occurred, negating the precedent of McGill’s divestment from the law-abiding tobacco industry. They also claimed that the industry was subject to strong regulation, ignoring the overwhelming power and sway that the fossil fuel industry holds in our political system. This kind of industry influence results in shockingly poor regulation, like the estimated 0.9 per cent of environmental violations from tar sands production that are enforced by the Albertan government.

Amid mingling following the Board of Governors decision, the chair of CAMSR revealed that she had referred to information “off the top of [her] head” that investments in renewable energy are not economically viable. The Divest McGill campaign has not made any recommendations as to what McGill should reinvest in, so this (unfounded) claim was irrelevant to our proposal and should not have been considered in the decision-making process. More staggeringly, she stated that McGill’s primary moral imperative in investing is to earn the greatest financial return for endowment donors. If profit is the main consideration, why bother with a social responsibility process at all?

Unfortunately, last year’s meeting has been unsuccessful thus far in catalyzing the larger conversation needed about the role of CAMSR, and on how the Board of Governors approaches the issue of social injury. The terms of reference review, occurring as we speak, has gone largely unnoticed and underplayed, and the BoG has made no indication that they will revise their terms or gather wider consultation. Most importantly, they have made no commitment to the inclusion of climate change as part of their definition of social injury.

This is not a formal response to the BoG, but rather a call to action on two fronts. One, join the Divest McGill campaign and continue fighting for climate justice on campus. Two, tell the BoG that CAMSR must be accountable to the McGill community, and to its own mandate. We suspect that as a world-class university full of intelligent people, McGill has at least a few resources to ensure that the recourse to social injury is rigorous and reflective of the interests and desires of the McGill community.

If you’re interested in getting involved in Divest McGill or starting a conversation on CAMSR, send us an email at divestmcgill@gmail.com.

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