Tar Sands Newsroom

Aboriginal Groups Chastise Royal Bank Canada For Oil-Sands Role

TORONTO (Dow Jones)--Canada's First Nations peoples chastised Royal Bank of Canada (RY) for not doing enough to prevent "an environmental holocaust," at the bank's annual meeting in Toronto Wednesday.

Four aboriginal groups appealed to Canada's biggest bank to use its corporate heft and political influence to stop Enbridge Inc. (ENB) from building a 725-mile pipeline to carry oil from Alberta's tar sands through northern British Columbia to Kitimat, where it would be loaded on tankers for shipment to the U.S. west coast or Asia.

Aboriginal Groups Chastise Royal Bank Canada For Oil-Sands Role
Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

More than 150 People Call on RBC to End Tar Sands Financing at Shareholder Meeting

Release Date: 
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

TORONTO—More than 150 people gathered outside the RBC Annual General Shareholder Meeting today to protest the bank’s leading role in funding the contentious Alberta tar sands. People concerned with the impact of tar sands projects on First Nations, water quality and the climate came from every corner of Canada to ensure that the bank heard the message: ‘stop bankrolling the tar sands.’

Rainforest Action Network Releases Seventy-Foot Banner Over Niagara Falls to 'Welcome' Prime Minister Harper to the U.S.

Release Date: 
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

CONTACTS: Nell Greenberg, 510.847.9777; Eriel Deranger, 587.785.1558

Hi-res photos, video and interviews with climbers available

Banner: Canadian Tar Sands Oil Undermines North America's Clean Energy Future

Unlikely Appeal to RBC First Lady, Mrs. Janet Nixon, Highlights Bank’s Involvement in Tar Sands

Release Date: 
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Toronto- A weeklong buzz around mysterious "please help us Mrs. Nixon" posters in downtown Toronto culminated today at the Royal Bank of Canada's (RBC) headquarters, where Rainforest Action Network (RAN) dropped a 15' x 30' banner appealing to Janet Nixon, the wife of CEO Gordon Nixon. Protestors scaled the 50' flagpole at the main entrance to the RBC headquarters on Bay and Wellington, replacing the flags with the 15' banner, which hung for 2.5 hours as employees, including Gordon Nixon, arrived for work at the bank. The banner and the posters asked for Mrs.

California’s Low Carbon Fuels Standard Could Impact Tar Sands Imports

Release Date: 
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

CALIFORNIA (April 22, 2009) –Today, the California Air Resources Board is in the final stages of considering the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), the biggest step yet in the state's campaign to slash global warming emissions. California regulators are poised to order sweeping changes to regulate the fuel sold within the state. The LCFS discourages the use of tar sands oil and encourages low-carbon transportation fuels as a way to fight global warming.

Protests at RBC Shareholder Meeting Highlight Poor Record on Water, Tar Sands

Release Date: 
Thursday, February 26, 2009

VANCOUVER – Activists with the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and First Nations representatives spoke out against RBC’s record on tar sands both inside and outside the bank’s Annual General Meeting today. Protests provided a stark contrast between the Olympic sponsor’s status as the top financier of the Alberta tar sands, one of the fastest growing sources of water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and RBC’s PR promises to promote clean water.