Date: April 12, 2024

Time: 7-9 PM (ADT) \\ 6-8 PM (EDT) \\ 5-7 PM (CDT) \\ 4-6 PM (MDT) \\  3-5 PM (PDT)

Location: Hybrid, Online (Zoom, Register Here) & In-Person (Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, 16 Spadina Rd , Toronto, ON M5R 2S7)

Join Indigenous Climate Action on Friday, April 12 from 6-8 PM (EDT), for a free, hybrid panel discussion: The Financial Risk of Ignoring Indigenous Rights, featuring Black and Indigenous panelists following their participation in the Royal Bank of Canada’s Annual General Meeting.

RBC’s AGM is a major opportunity for shareholders and other interested parties to discuss the company's finances, policies, and plans for the future. Panelists will share their experiences and concerns regarding RBC's financing decisions involving projects affecting their lands and communities, discuss the realities of what they’re enduring at the hands of the fossil fuel industry, RBC’s financing of global human rights violations, and recapping their participation at the AGM, and present opportunities and next steps within the Indigenous Divestment movement.

This panel discussion will be livestreamed on through a Zoom webinar and ICA’s Facebook account. A recording of the panel discussion will be available on our YouTube channel in the following days after this event.

Speakers:

Courtney Wyne (EmCee)

Courtney Wynne (they/she) comes from an Anishinaabe and Ililiw woman, and is early on in their journey of building a deeper relationship with their paternal DNA. Courtney is a child welfare survivor, she was raised and taken care of by family and community. 

Vanessa Gray

Vanessa Gray is Anishinaabe Kwe, the Divestment Campaign Coordinator at Indigenous Climate Action and is well known for her environmental justice work on pollution in Ontario’s Chemical Valley – a petrochemical hub on her territory and surrounding her community of Aamjiwnaang First Nation. She is the co-founder of Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP), Porcupine Warriors, and co-lead of the Environmental Data Justice (EDJ) Lab, which produces tools to visualize the relationship between colonialism, data, and pollution such as the Pollution Reporter App. Aamjiwnaang community member’s constant exposure to harmful emissions results in some of the highest mortality rates for cancers and respiratory diseases in Ontario. Vanessa has dedicated her life to challenging colonial violence and its impacts on environmental health.

Kolin Sutherland-Wilson

Kolin Sutherland-Wilson is from the Git’luuhl’um’hetxwit Wilp of the Gitxsan people, also known as the house of Tsi’basaa. He holds the name of Hooxi’i, meaning “One more” in the Gitxsan language. Currently he works as a Lax’yip Protection Specialist, upholding the inherent jurisdiction of Gitxsan law on Gitxsan land. He is also serving as the elected Chief Councillor for the village of Kispiox. He is a writer and researcher with a focus on Gitxsan law and the environment. Kolin has always been a supporter of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Houses that continue to resist the unlawful trespass of Coastal GasLink onto their homelands, as the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en share the same ancient system of House-based governance.

Juan B. Mancias

Juan is tribal is the Tribal Chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, was born and raised in Plainview, Texas. He is the eldest born to a father and mother Carrizo Comecrudo. Juan received his higher education at the Incarnate Word University, receiving a Pastoral Studies certificate, and at Texas Tech University, earning degrees in both Political Science and Sociology.

With a background in business leadership, he has managed finance institutions and insurance companies, and has held leadership roles as an Assistant Tribal Administrator with the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas and Tribal Administrator of the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians of California and the Alabama Coushatta Tribe of Texas.  In recent years he played a major role in putting together marches against the Dos Republicas Coal mine, which produces a substandard coal that is sold to Mexico where there are no EPA standards (the coal is burned just across the border, polluting the air, and then drifts back into the US through the air particulates). In the mid 1990’s, he worked alongside the Sierra Club, protecting prairie dogs and their habitat from urban encroachment in the Lubbock, Texas area. He has also initiated two inter-tribal organizations that are still viable and thriving today.

Currently, he is building resistance to the fossil fuel industry and the devastating impact they bring to the environment, raising awareness of the dangerous impact of border wall construction, organizing efforts to assist asylum refugees, and reclaiming and protecting his tribe’s ancestral lands. Most important to him is his work trying to bring his tribal history to the public forefront by doing extensive research on Texas Native history. 

Juan considers himself a protector of the true Texas people lifeways. He speaks from what he knows and from the teachings that are common to many tribal people. His work today focuses on decolonizing both tribal people and others. He has written a 12-step decolonization program and presents it frequently at conferences and seminars. 

Representative from Gidimt’en Checkpoint

Speaking about Coastal Gas Link + Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) build out and TC Energy.

Tori Cress

• Headshot:

• Bio: Tori Cress (Beverly - supporting comms) Speaks to impacts of tar sands on water. RBC finances companies active in the tar sands including Enbridge, Suncor, Exxon Mobil, Chevron on behalf of Keepers of the Water.

• Communications Manager, Tori Cress

• G’Chiminssing, Williams Treaty Territory

• Tori is Anishinaabe (Ojibway and Pottawattami) from G’Chimnissing, an island community on the shores of Georgian Bay in Williams Treaty territory. She has brought her passion for communications work and grassroots community engagement to Keepers of the Water as our communications manager. Her role includes communication strategy development, managing and maintaining the Keepers of the Water website, developing and publishing a quarterly newsletter, managing social media and expanding, and regular email updates to our subscribers Tori also brings her Anishinaabe worldview, cultural values, and dedicated support of the Water is Life movement to the Keepers of the Water organization.

Date: April 11, 2024

Time: 1-2 PM EDT, Local time

Location: In-person (33 Carlson Ct), and online (Zoom, register here)

Black and Indigenous delegates, involved in water and land protection from RBC backed fossil fuel projects, will be taking part in a press conference, following RBC’s AGM. There will be photo opportunities, and a question and answer period with delegates following their statements.

Date: Thursday, April 11, 2024

Time: 10 AM - 12 PM EDT, Local time

Location: Toronto Congress Centre, 644 Dixon Rd, Toronto, ON

On April 11th, stand in solidarity with frontline land defenders speaking truth to power at RBC’s Annual General Meeting! Hear speakers and land defenders from @yintahaccess, @pymtoronto , @keepersofthewater4life, @climatejusticeuoft, and many other communities resisting RBC’s destruction of their lands, waters, and peoples. Tell RBC: no more profiting off of genocide, land theft and climate chaos!

Need a ride? Buses available from downtown!

• Gather at 8:45 AM at pick-up location

• Meet us there, or register for a spot on one of our buses from St. George Subway Station

Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Time: 1 PM EDT (Local time)

Location: Harbour Square Park (25 Queens Quay W, Toronto, ON)

Attention Tkaronto Allies! Indigenous Climate Action and Free Grassy are hosting a water walk Wednesday, April 10 at 1PM (local time) at Harbour Square Park (25 Queens Quay W, Toronto). We’re calling on allies to join in solidarity with Black and Indigenous community members affected by Royal Bank of Canada funded fossil fuel projects, who will be attending RBC’s AGM. There will be singers, drummers, a round dance, and speeches!

Speakers:
Judy Da Silva (Grassy Narrows Elder), Vanessa Gray (Divestment , Indigenous Climate Action), Chief Na’Moks (Hereditary Chief of Wet’suwet’en), Roishetta Ozane (Executive Director of The Vessel Project and The Gulf Fossil Finance Coordinator for Texas Campaign for The Environment who will speak to RBC’s financing of LNG in the Gulf of Mexico), Beze Gray ( Two-Spirit from Aamjiwnaang First Nation), Kolin Sutherland-Wilson (Gitxsan Nation), Jesse Stoeppler (Skeena Watershed Coalition), Cedar George-Parker (Tsleil-Waututh Nation), Tara Houska (Giniw Collective), Shaylee Holland (Youth delegate, Wet’suwet’en Nation), Anna-Marie Holland (Wet’suwet’en Nation), Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck (Citizen of the Occaneechi, Band of the Saponi Nation. CEO/CoFounder of 7 Directions of Service), Jason Crazy Bear Keck (7 Directions of Service)

Keepers of the Water and Indigenous Climate Action will be postponing the 2023 Tar Sands Healing Walk until further notice.

While the focus of this event was to support local communities impacted by the tar sands, these same communities are now in a state of crisis and displacement due to the intense and early season forest fires. Our focus in the coming months will now be to support communities through this climate disaster.

History of the Healing Walk

The Tar Sands Healing Walk began in 2010, bringing together Indigenous peoples, with the support of allies, to call for healing for the Athabasca region. The 14 kilometer ceremonial walk circles the Syncrude Open-Pit Tailings Mine in Treaty 8 Territory and brings together voices and prayers from across the region.

The last walk in 2014 gathered over 700 participants signaling a strong and clear message: we need to unite all peoples across Turtle Island, Indigenous and Non-Indigenous, to protect the land, water, air, and all living beings from the destruction of the Tar Sands and its pipelines.

In 2023, Keeper of the Water and Indigenous Climate Action are honored to come together to revive the Healing Walk and reaffirm support for our Indigenous relatives most impacted by extractive industries in so-called Alberta and help strengthen capacity for ongoing collective healing and movement building in these territories.