Young Canadians have a message for the next government. There will be no “drill, baby drill” on Indigenous land in Canada.

While the infamous words from U.S. president Donald Trump are being echoed by Canadian politicians like Alberta premier Danielle Smith and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, young people will not sit back and watch as our hard-earned money is used to finance the destruction of our futures. 

Right now, there are three new fossil-fuel projects that are about to be approved and financed very soon. 

Canada’s big banks have pooled out $1.2 trillion in the past nine years into climate-disastrous fossil fuel projects — at the same time, all six big banks have now exited the global banking climate coalition, a betrayal of their 2021 promise to help limit the impacts of the climate crisis. 

Young people are tired of waiting.

Answering the call from Indigenous land defenders, we at Change Course have mobilized thousands of students to fight back against the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, financed by RBC, and all major Canadian banks. This fight is far from over. 

Last month, students, student unions, and young people across the country took powerful actions on their campuses in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan youth and chiefs, demanding that the big five banks of Canada refuse to finance these and future fossil fuel and LNG projects. Among Canada’s planned LNG projects is the proposed expansion of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, which has been fiercely opposed by the Wet’suwet’en for a decade. 

Lakehead University students host Yintah film screening and art build.

CGL Phase Two would increase the volume of fracked gas being transported across the Wet’suwet’en Yintah (land) without their free, prior, and informed consent. 

The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) is the proposed 800-kilometer liquefied natural gas pipeline intending to transport fracked gas from northeastern British Columbia to the coast. 

The Ksi Lisims LNG Terminal is a proposed massive export facility that would receive this fracked gas through the PRGT pipeline and ship it overseas. If greenlit, this pipeline threatens salmon-bearing rivers, forests, and the Gitxsan and Gitanyow way of life and territories, who publicly oppose the project. 

Despite what the oil and gas industry wants us to believe, LNG is anything but “natural.” LNG is a fossil fuel, not a “clean alternative.” LNG is still being pushed as a climate solution by world leaders, most recently by Donald Trump. 

As the expansion of fossil fuels is expected to ramp up, regardless who wins the next election, students like Natasha Ivkov with SFU350 says she’s “blown away that we’re still considering LNG projects as bridge fuel between fossil fuels and renewable energy, considering their environmental, economic, and Indigenous justice impacts.”

Carleton University students canvas in the Student Centre.

While the scope of these projects may instill existential dread about the fate of our planet, Chloë Arneson, Vice President of Equity and Sustainability for the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS), says banks have a responsibility to make investments that don’t put future generations at risk: “Power is not given to us by those in charge. Power is built from the ground up on our campuses and in our communities through mutual aid and principled solidarity across issues.” 

The SFSS is among 13 Canadian student unions, representing over 450,000 student members, signed on to a letter demanding Canada’s “big five” banks divest from fossil fuels. 

Of these 13 student unions, six have cut ties with Canadian banks by cutting sponsorship agreements, banking agreements, and in some cases, committing to close their RBC on campus branch. Student groups from 14 universities across Canada took part in the Day of Action by canvassing, rallying, staging art exhibits, and banner drops in solidarity with Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en land defenders.

Arneson emphasizes the critical role of student unions in taking strong positions on political issues, organizing with other student activists, and using their voices to make historical changes: “Universities aren’t progressive by nature. We have to demand this to make it a reality.”

The Banks Off Campus movement builds on a lineage of historical student-led divestment wins, some of which we are seeing in real time. 

Universitè de Sherbrooke students stage a vox pop, interviewing ordinary students to raise awareness of RBCs role in financing projects that violate Indigenous rights and signing a banner calling on their university to cut ties with big banks.

Martha Capener, a student organizer with Climate Justice Climatique at the University of Ottawa, organized to kick RBC off her campus. It led to the UOttawa students’ union switching their funds to a credit union and collaborating to advocate to push the university to end its lease with RBC.

In November of 2023, RBC C-Suite Executives met with UOttawa students advocating for the end of RBC’s lease; Alex Stratas, Advocacy Commissioner for the UOttawa Students Union, was among the attendees alongside Quanah Traviss with the UOttawa Indigenous Students Association. 

Stratas recalls it was a tense meeting. “RBC tried to change our minds regarding their false solutions to the climate crisis. They offloaded responsibility for the degradation of the environment onto their clients and other actors, greenwashed their involvement in the climate movement, and reiterated carbon capture lies. RBC was underprepared to answer our questions about its climate policies and its treatment of Indigenous land defenders. We made it clear to them that we are not stopping until they meet our demands or leave our campus.”

Traviss says the Indigenous Students Association highlighted the university’s complicity in active colonization. 

“The University of Ottawa has an Indigenous Action Plan. In our ongoing meetings with administration, we make the point that they can’t have their commitment to reconciliation, to divest from fossil fuels, and their relationship with RBC,” Traviss says. “The University has to choose between its commitment to Indigenous students or RBC. We feel we are finally being heard and making more progress now than ever before.”

Youth have leverage over the big bank’s reputation. We are calling them out. 

Capener says fighting huge multinational corporations is certainly not easy, but feeling solidarity across borders keeps her going. “While Palestinians and Indigenous land defenders are doing the work on the frontlines of their territories, their strength and determination motivates us to keep up the pressure on our campuses.”

Students have always been on the right side of history. “Many of the rights and freedoms we enjoy today were won by students who dared to stand up, speak out, and organize. Now, it’s our turn to carry that torch forward,” reiterates Arneson.

At 15, I joined the masses of young people wanting their money to build a livable future and just present, not only for ourselves, but for you, your children and thereafter. I am now 19, and we are still here. Stronger than ever; the voices of thousands of youth are on our side. In the words of Ivkov, “Together, we can stop them.”  Canadian leaders: can you hear us? 

Aishwarya Puttur is a writer, speaker, and climate justice organizer studying at the University of British Columbia, focused on a just transition to renewable energy and climate education.