Tag: divestment

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Features

Concordia University Foundation: between the community and the corporation

Concordia University Foundation juggles social and environmental responsibility with corporate profits

On Nov. 8, 2019, the Concordia University Foundation (CUF) committed to divesting  all investments in coal, oil, and gas industries by 2025, in order to become 100 per cent sustainable. The CUF also added the goal of allocating 10 per cent of its long-term assets in impact investments towards its 2025 goal. Impact investments are made with the intention of bringing about positive social and environmental change together with a financial return. Concordia emphasizes that these steps ensure that the University is investing in socially and environmentally responsible ways. However, complaints from students claim a disconnect from community centred initiatives, as multinational service providers tout sustainability as a method for financial growth.

Lacey Boudreau, a Concordia youth activist and a member of Climate Justice Action Concordia (CJAC), believes that these are steps in the right direction. However, Boudreau is wary of how much space is left for the foundation to prioritize profits over community. “You can still be investing in a company that is making a transition to net-zero which means that you can still be investing in them [fossil fuels],” she said.

Boudreau also points out that there could be discrepancies between how both the student community and the finance world interpret the term sustainable.” Shylah Wolfe, the executive director of the Concordia Food Coalition, echoed the same concern. “One of our main critiques of the sustainability action plan, [is that] the recommendations are never going to be fulfilled if we continue with multinational service providers,” explained Wolfe.

Multinational portfolio managers

Currently, the portfolio managers for the CUF’s impact investments, which are claimed to generate impacts on people and the planet, include companies such as Wells Fargo and BlackRock. Wells Fargo has been identified as one of the major banks to invest in private prisons and the immigrant detention industry. Timothy Sloan, former Wells Fargo CEO, said that the bank was exiting the private prison industry in March 2019. But amid Sloan’s statement the bank had been the portfolio manager for the CUF’s impact investments.

BlackRock, another firm listed as a portfolio manager for impact investments in CUF’s 2020-21 Annual Report, faced backlash in 2018 for its ties with large American firearms makers, while maintaining support for the oil and gas industry as part of the solution alongside environmental investment policies.

Wolfe believes that investing with multinational service providers such as Wells Fargo and BlackRock does not fulfil the aims of being impactful and socially responsible. However, Marc Gauthier, the university treasurer and chief investment officer, believes that the University’s investments are in reality 100 per cent impactful and wide reaching. 

Gauthier also explained that in the CUF’s new framework, capital allocation is driven by sustainability objectives that enable social equity, financial inclusion, discrimination reduction, affordable housing, and health improvement, among other impacts. However, moving away from multinational portfolio managers was not mentioned as part of the path to being socially or environmentally responsible in investments.

Investment screening

In 2014, Erik Chevrier, part-time instructor at Concordia, made recommendations for implementing a socially responsible investment plan at the University. One of the recommendations was negatively screening fossil fuels production.

Negative screening excludes companies that work in sectors that are harmful for the environment or society. While the foundation has adopted negative screening, Boudreau believes that steps need to be taken towards positive screening. Positive screening finds companies that score high on environmental and social issues, further weeding out low scoring companies.

From the balance sheet to the campus 

Wolfe believes that commitment to sustainability needs to “leap from the balance sheet to the campus,” and that “continued commitment to mitigating climate change fundamentally requires investment in transforming the food system.”

Wolfe adds that investing in high impact solutions such as social enterprise funding and The New Food Enterprise need to be prime candidates for CUF’s support and investment.  Concordia’s current investment in Aramark, which is a multinational food service with links to the US prison system, is another example of Concordia’s problematic partnerships with multinational corporations.

Boudreau adds that the tension between the student body and the administration regarding the definition of sustainability can have real consequences. This tension explains why students mostly rely on student-run fee levy groups such as the Sustainability Action Fund (SAF) to fund their projects, rather than relying on the University for support.

CUF and the community

The CUF asserts that its links with the community at Concordia are strong and that this communication is maintained through the Joint Sustainable Investment Advisory Committee (JSIAC). Denis Cossette, Concordia’s chief financial officer stated that “JSIAC is composed of both students and faculty members and is very useful to keep the discussion open”.  

“These meetings are very infrequent and it’s whenever they [CUF] want to present something,” affirmed Boudreau. She described a recent JSIAC meeting where most of the meeting was spent on the presentation of the CUF’s plans with a short Q&A session. 

“It wasn’t a space where they were interested in any of our thoughts. It was just a presentation. The plan was done,” Boudreau said.  

Boudreau believes that because the students were not part of the initial conversation, it would be very difficult for their comments to be integrated at the next level.

The high turnover of students might make it difficult for them to retain the institutional knowledge that they gain from activism on campus and to be taken seriously by the administration. 

“I think there’s a habit of the administration to have no faith and to not follow through on student projects and groups, but we have proven that we are capable,” said Wolfe.

Boudreau noted that Concordia students try to counter that weakness by keeping in touch with past Concordians to brainstorm creative solutions.

The board of directors

The CUF has a male-dominated board of directors with a visible lack of diversity and a number of incredibly wealthy individuals in charge of establishing the University’s portfolio-investment policies.

“It’s true, it’s not a board that is as diversified as the board of university but these people in their field are also applying this sustainable approach that we have included in the investment policy,” said Cossette.

“Where are the climate experts [on the board]?” Boudreau pointed out when asked about the composition of the CUF’s board of directors. 

On the other hand, the grassroots groups at Concordia take a different approach to the composition of their board of directors. “The Concordia Food Coalition (CFC) has engaged consultants to overhaul our own recruitment policies because we absolutely believe that our leadership and their perspective will inform how comprehensive and holistic our programs are and how innovative our solutions to community needs are, because the campus is certainly not mostly white cis males,” explained Wolfe.

Transparency

When it comes to the transparency of the CUF, Boudreau believes that it should go beyond the public financial reports. “Even if they are transparent with the information, [they use] all these financial terms and this is how they are getting away with these things because people don’t know what these words mean,” she said.

Boudreau added that the CUF should be transparent “in a way that students understand [the information] and have the space to ask questions and to be listened to.”

The CUF became part of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2018. The organization was supposed to receive a grade for its investments in June 2022, but due to a change in reporting requirements by the PRI, there were delays in the grade reports.

“We’ll have our grades only in 2023,” said Gauthier. For Boudreau, seeing climate experts weighing in on the progress made by the CUF would also help the student body understand the reality of the progress made so far. “They only have finance people working on this and that does not address the root problems,” added Boudreau.

Financing and the future

Gauthier also added that the CUF looks at sustainability not only from an “investment perspective, but from a financing perspective.” Gauthier cited the University’s issuing of sustainable bonds in 2019 as part of this vision. The bonds were issued to help finance the new LEED-certified Science Hub. Therefore, apart from relying on investments, the CUF has also been trying to come up with other financing options such as the issuing of sustainable bonds. However, many community organizers at Concordia believe that responsible financing could go further and include divesting from multinational corporations.

“There’s a dynamic tension between people versus profits at Concordia,” said Wolfe. For Boudreau, “there are many radical projects on campus working against the profit narrative.”

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News

Students from the geography department strike for more climate action

According to protesters, Concordia would be able to divest faster than their target five-year plan.

“What do we want? Divestment! When do we want it? Now!” chanted students from the Geography Undergrad Student Society (GUSS) on Friday during a strike.

The 25 students who gathered at the Henry F. Hall building’s ninth floor were urging the university to divest faster than their previously announced five-year plan.

The Concordia University Foundation sent a press release in November presenting its divestment plan in all of its investments from the coal, oil and gas sectors before 2025, reported The Concordian.

“We want to make sure that Concordia is held accountable in this divestment protest, so making it as fast as possible and have real binding agreements, because historically, they had been kind of lax,” said a student who wished to remain anonymous for privacy purposes with the university. Other striking students asked to remain anonymous and not have their faces shown on camera for the same reasons

In 2016, the university had already established a joint sustainable investment advisory committee to “make recommendations to their respective governing bodies on socially and environmentally responsible investment opportunities” reported Concordia News. The committee included representatives from the student body like the Concordia Student Union, the Graduate Student Association and Divest Concordia.

“The Concordia University Foundation publishes an annual report which includes audited financial statements,” wrote Concordia’s spokesperson Vannina Maestracci in an email to The Concordian. “The Foundation will continue to provide these annual reports which serve to assess its investments.”

The students were handing out pamphlets with their demands that the university be held accountable for divestment at the fastest rate possible through a student-faculty body that oversees divestment, by implementing binding agreements and and that the measures taken would be communicated to students with full transparency.

The protesters claim that Concordia would be able to divest way faster than the planned rate and that a lot of information regarding the process is not publicly shared.

“We believe that five years is the time it will take to replace our remaining exposure to coal, oil and gas,” wrote Concordia’s spokesperson. “If we can do it sooner, all the better. For us, it’s not simply about withdrawing investments from coal, oil and gas. It is also about finding the new investments that are sustainable and benefit our community in terms of research, teaching and charitable programs.”

Students are also demanding that Concordia declares climate emergency in which they would implement more binding language. However, Concordia has already done that last September.

“We signed a climate emergency declaration with nine other Quebec universities by which we committed to more sustainability education and research, and carbon neutrality by 2050 at the latest,” wrote Concordia’s spokesperson.

The strike had been previously voted upon unanimously by the GUSS during a general assembly.

“In geography, there’s a desire for climate action in our education and sort of what the professors are learning and researching on,” said the student.

Although no other events have been planned yet, the geography student body said it is not willing to back away until Concordia takes serious action.

 

Photo by Jad Abukasm

Categories
Student Life

Divest Concordia spreads its wings

Graphic by @spooky_soda

A hilariously well-networked class reignites the fossil fuel divest movement

Since the formation of Divest Concordia in 2013, the student-run group has been continuously pressuring the Concordia University Foundation (CUF) to freeze current investments in the fossil fuel industry and withdraw all future investments from the top 200 fossil fuel companies. The CUF makes all decisions regarding the university’s $185.9 million endowment fund, which is invested in various stocks and bonds that generate funding for scholarships, bursaries and research coming out of Concordia. Approximately 10 per cent of the endowment fund “may have some connection with fossil fuels,” according to former University Spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr.

Research and mobilization around the divest movement has largely been undertaken by student-run groups like Divest Concordia, Sustainable Concordia, and the Concordia Student Union (CSU) in 2016, when the CSU adopted divestment as their annual campaign. However, in January 2019, a group of students enrolled in a 400-level interdisciplinary geography course began brainstorming ways to utilize the class’s resources and networks to reignite the divest movement at Concordia.

“It’s a methodology class where students learn about how to do research that supports, and is engaged with the work of a social justice institution,” said Kevin Gould, an associate professor in the geography, planning and environment department, who created the shell of the course. “The class has become a space where people that have this common interest [of divestment] have been able to engage with each other—to learn, to think, to plan,” said Gould. Students are currently in the early stages of developing scopes of research that examine potential avenues for furthering the divestment movement on campus.

Concordia University Foundation common shares investment breakdown 2010-11. Graph illustration by Loreanna Lastoria

Emily Carson-Apstein, who works closely with Divest Concordia and is the external campaigns coordinator for Sustainable Concordia, was a key member in helping Gould structure the class around divestment. Carson-Apstein said that having the CSU campaigns department working with Divest Concordia meant there was a lot of people-power behind the movement. “[The divest movement] is smaller than it was in 2016 […] but it’s definitely still present,” they said. “It’s more in a negotiation phase than a public education phase.”

Increasing student awareness of the urgent need for full fossil fuel divestment, community mobilization and conveying the message that Concordia is not an institution completely committed to a sustainable economic future are a few of the goals the geography class hopes to help Divest Concordia with.

In 2014, Concordia boasted the creation of a socially responsible investment (SRI) fund of $5 million, which would transfer funds from existing assets to be reinvested in “environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors,” according to the university’s website. Divest Concordia representatives at the time condemned the foundation’s decision, saying it was “a flat-out rejection of student calls for full divestment from fossil fuels,” according to Newswire. Noting the distinction between sustainable investment versus fossil fuel divestment is pertinent, as sustainable investment is used as a redirection tactic to avoid addressing the foundation’s continued investment in the fossil fuel industry.

Despite heavy criticism from Divest Concordia, Concordia was praised by some of the wider Montreal community for exhibiting sustainable leadership. The Montreal Gazette published an article on Dec. 2, 2014 claiming that Concordia was the first university in the country to begin taking steps towards divesting from fossil fuels. However, it is important to note the CUF is able to continue to invest in the fossil fuel industry while simultaneously contributing to the SRI fund, as well as other sustainable investment endeavours. In February 2016, the foundation created the Joint Sustainable Investment Advisory Committee (JSIAC) in response to increased pressure from Divest Concordia, Sustainable Concordia, and the student body to fully divest. Divest Concordia and Sustainable Concordia each occupy a seat on JSIAC, and the committee is the only channel of communication either organization has to the foundation’s board of directors. JSIAC’s influence over the board and its investment decisions regarding the endowment fund ends at making recommendations to the foundation.

Concordia University Foundation common shares investment breakdown 2011-12. Graph illustration by Loreanna Lastoria.

In an interview with The Concordian, Carson-Apstein stated that the yet-to-be released 2018 annual report estimate of the endowment fund is approximately $218 million, from what the CUF has informed Divest Concordia. In terms of financial transparency, the foundation has continually failed to clearly state which sectors of the economy it’s invested in since 2011, particularly with regards to energy resources. According to the foundation’s 2010-11 financial report, Canadian common share investments in oil and gas were about $9.1 million, investments in pipelines were about $2.6 million, and investments in metals and minerals were about $2.2 million.

However, in the foundation’s 2011-12 annual report, categories such as ‘oil and gas,’ ‘pipelines,’ and ‘metals and minerals’ cannot be found in the common share investment breakdown. Instead, the report vaguely shows an $11.7 million investment in the relatively ambiguous category titled ‘energy.’ According to the foundation’s 2016-17 annual report, a total of about $10 million in both Canadian and U.S. common share investments fall under the categories ‘energy,’ ‘materials,’ and ‘industrials.’ On Feb. 11, 2019, Concordia announced it is the first Canadian university to issue a $25 million sustainable bond, due by 2039, which will allow the university to finance the new Science Hub at Loyola. However, there have been no discussions of the more than $10 million continued investment in what is arguably the fossil fuel industry.

Carson-Apstein explained that a major challenge faced by Divest Concordia over the years has been institutional memory; the passing down of information and strategies from graduating students to newly engaged students. “Most of the folks who were founders of Divest Concordia have moved on by now,” they said. “But I think Kevin’s class is amazing […] It’s super cool that the work that’s happening in the classroom is going to be directly relevant to stuff that’s happening in the world right now.” Drawing attention to the discrepancies and financial patterns of the foundation’s annual reports is one of many strategies the geography class will use to shed light on the realities of Concordia’s investment practices, and continue pushing for full fossil fuel divestment.

Divest Concordia meets every Monday at 4:30 p.m. to discuss news, ideas and strategies. Meetings are held at 2090 McKay St. in the Z Annex on the top floor for anyone who wants to join the fight.

Feature graphic by @sundaeghost

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News

Divest Concordia stopped from mobilizing

Leonard and Ringland photographed outside the elevators of GM. Photo by Savanna Craig.

Security blocked entry of elevators where BOG meeting was held

Divest Concordia protested outside the Board of Governors (BOG) meeting on March 8 as a means to push the BOG to put Divest Concordia on their agenda. However, Divest members were met with Concordia security, who blocked access to the entrance of the fourth floor of the GM building.

“The president explained that the restricted access measures were in response to advice following last week’s events,” Concordia University Spokesperson Chris Mota told The Concordian, referencing the bomb threat at Concordia on March 1, which targeted the Muslim community. “High profile meetings can attract copycat attention and we wanted to ensure the meeting could be held without incident,” said Mota.

Divest Concordia decided to protest due to a lack of effort made by the BOG to give Divest time during the board’s meeting on March 8, said Kya Ringland, a member of Divest Concordia and an organizer of the mobilization.

Emails were sent to Concordia president Alan Shepard and the president of the BOG, among others. Divest Concordia sent them on Feb. 26, however, the administration did not respond until the day before the BOG meeting. The response, from assistant secretary-general Danielle Tessier, stated that Divest Concordia’s request to have their concerns added to the meeting’s agenda was being reviewed by the BOG.

Divest members intended to stand outside the BOG meeting to deliver informational postcards signed by more than 300 students, detailing concerns over the delay of Concordia’s divestment from the gas and fossil fuel industries, said Ringland. More importantly, Ringland added, the postcards urged the university to move forward with the sustainability policy, which is meant to facilitate sustainable initiatives at Concordia.

One of the goals of the sustainability policy is to divest from gas and fossil fuels and instead to invest in sustainable initiatives. The policy will also look into opportunities to fund socially and environmentally responsible projects, according to Concordia News.

The Joint Sustainable Investment Advisory Committee (JSIAC), composed of members of Concordia student organizations, including Divest Concordia, and the BOG, will review these initiatives.

Ringland said board members of the JSIAC asked other members to research sustainable investment opportunities Concordia could fund with the money removed from the fossil fuel and gas industries.

“Our Divest members [have been asked] to do research in alternative investments, which is great. We’re happy to partner with people to do that,” Ringland said. “Our members have done that and brought the research to the JSIAC, and it has just kind of been disregarded and not talked about anymore.”

Ringland said the same has happened for Sustainable Concordia. “They have looked at alternative investments, and no follow-up has been made on any of them,” she said. “Many other students and faculty members have put forth research and solutions––including the CSU.”

However, Ringland said she believes efforts should be made outside of student and faculty members. “We feel all members of JSIAC should be doing research into alternatives [and] bringing alternative solutions forward,” said Ringland. “Board members and admin should be a part of this process.”

Tessier said the JSIAC will be meeting shortly to make recommendations to the Concordia University Foundation and other stakeholders with regards to Concordia’s commitment to sustainable investing.

Leonard handing postcards to BOG representative. Photo by Savanna Craig

Divest member Alex Leonard said he hopes members of the BOG will see the group’s postcards. He said it is important to have the BOG “open to hearing what the student body is saying, as opposed to creating barriers where these public meetings are now high-security.”

“I think that [the BOG is] taking steps in the right direction, and I want to believe that they have the good of Concordia’s community in mind,” Ringland said. “I think that that’s going to be happening more—they’re actually holding consultations in the next two months with Concordia students, so those will be good.”

Ringland said divestment is an issue that’s becoming more severe due to climate change. “I think most of the Concordia community knows, and so we just want to make sure that [the BOG] realize how urgent it is and use that urgency to dictate their daily decisions,” Ringland said.

Before the Divest Concordia members left, a representative from the BOG came down to ask Divest members what they wanted to say to the governors. Divest Concordia members chose to let the postcards speak for them—Leonard handed the postcards to the representative.
Divest Concordia will hold their next meeting on March 17 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m in the CSU art nook, adjacent to People’s Potato on the 7th floor of the Hall building.

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Opinions

The industrious demise of the Canadian landscape

Photo by Kris Krug.

The tar sands are a toxic wasteland that shall poison our nation

“In short, it is an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s Great Wall. Only bigger,” said former prime minister Stephen Harper back in 2006, as he vividly discussed the development of the tar sands.

Photo by Kris Krug.

It’s now almost a decade later, and the surrounding forest is disappearing, as the process of industrialization has spread like a deadly virus. The animals are diseased and the river has been exposed to toxic pollutants. The air now carries a pungent odor, as noxious fumes fill the atmosphere and plumes of vapor block out the sun.

The thirst for oil has undoubtedly transformed the landscape of northern Alberta. As a Canadian, I strongly oppose the development of the tar sands and I’m quite frankly ashamed we have allowed these nefarious operations to continue onwards.

You may be wondering ‘What the hell are these so called tar sands?,’ sometimes referred to as ‘oil sands.’ According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Alberta has some of the largest deposits of bitumen, a type of crude oil that is trapped within the sandy soil. Bitumen is a gooey substance that shares a similar texture to molasses, and requires various chemical processes to separate the oil from the sand—hence the name tar sands.

Photo by Julia Kilpatrick.

According to an article published by The Globe and Mail in 2014, the size of the tar sands is 140,000 square kilometers, and only 4,750 square kilometers are mineable. The development can now be seen from space, as parts of the boreal forest have been decimated due to operations in the region, as mentioned in the same article. Most of the extracted oil is consumed domestically, with 1.5 million barrels consumed per day, while the rest of the oil heads mainly to the U.S., according to the same article.

This data highlights our grotesque addiction to oil.  

The development has heavily impacted the indigenous communities living around the Athabasca River. An article published by the Vancouver Observer revealed that Health Canada warned several communities living downstream of the tar sands that there were toxins present in the animals. Testing revealed that fish contained abnormally high levels of mercury, meanwhile wild game contained high levels of arsenic. This inevitably led several communities to stop eating wild game, forcibly altering their traditional way of life. The same article also mentioned how many community members have developed rare forms of cancer, leading many in the community to speculate there exists a link between the tar sands and these diseases.

Immediately after the article was released, the then Health Minister Rona Ambrose refused to comment on the matter. In my opinion, this demonstrates the level of devotion the Conservatives had towards the development of the tar sands. Throughout Harper’s dark reign over our country, he notoriously endorsed the Keystone pipeline proposal that would see millions of litres of crude oil transferred across the border.

We have yet to see the true consequences of the tar sands here in Canada, although for reference we can look towards the incident regarding the Kalamazoo River. In 2010, a Canadian pipeline carrying diluted bitumen spilled into the tributaries of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. Over the course of 17 hours, roughly 3.3 million litres of crude spilled from the pipeline, before the company Enbridge shut off the flow, according to the CBC.

Photo by David Dodge.

The diluted bitumen behaves very differently from refined oil, and sinks in water, making cleanup efforts extremely difficult, according to the same report. The entire spill costs almost US$1.27 billion according to EcoWatch, meaning that it was the most expensive inland oil spill in U.S. history.

With the new Liberal government coming into power, it is unclear which path they shall take in addressing this very contentious issue. Catherine McKenna, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, was in Paris for the climate talks, but hasn’t publicly addressed the government’s policy towards the tar sands.

Can we not learn from these horrible mistakes? Can we not see the tar sands spell disaster in capital letters written bold? The region has become a toxic blemish on our beautiful landscape, altering the ecosystem and indigenous communities’ way of life. Our nation may be filled with desirable resources, ready to be exploited, but at what cost?

Categories
News

Keeping up the pressure on divestment

First Nations speak on aboriginal fight for land and air

Four notable keynotes spoke at the inaugural event of the Fossil Free Canada Convergence that took place Nov. 7 to 9 at Concordia and McGill universities. The event, which focused on the growing divestment movement calling for the shedding of income and profit from fossil fuels, brought together students and activists from all around the country and gave them a chance to discuss and collaborate on climate change and environmental justice.

The divestment movement, not only active at Concordia but also on nearly 30 campuses across Canada, calls for responsible investments by educational institutions.

The event united four women activists intimately involved in different but connected movements such as aboriginal rights, climate change and the divestment effort. It was led by the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and supported by both the Concordia Student Union and the Student Society of McGill University.

Denise Jourdain, an elder representative of the Innu community of Uashat mak Mani-Utenam and active participant in various aboriginal rights movements like  Idle No More, opened the event. She presented parts of her memoir and spoke about aboriginal identity and culture, and on the conflicting governmental policies over their traditional territories. She went on to talk about her own experience with the ever-present judicial issues surrounding the uncertain rights of the aboriginal community, going so far as to share a personal moment about her weakened mother’s desire to relate to her ancestral culture. Throughout, Jourdain underlined the importance of preserving the various and very distinct aboriginal cultures.

Following her was native youth-focused activist Heather Milton-Lightening, currently working as the co-director of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign out of the Polaris Institute. Milton-Lightening strongly advocated  active participation of youth in the activism process, notably on aboriginal-related issues. Her testimony about her difficult childhood with foster parents and her teenage years in Winnipeg served as an example of a generation that was subject to past and present controversial Canadian policies.

Alyssa Symons-Bélanger, an anti-pipeline activist who has participated in and organized events around Québec, talked about the array of projects she has been involved with, like the Marche des Peuples de la Terre Mère. Symons-Bélanger also recalled her background in theatre and defined what is known as theatre of the oppressed, a type of theatre that looks at people involved in power struggles against oppressors. The Cabaret Olé Oléoduc, a play aimed at protesting pipeline projects, was cited as a good example of this type of theatre.

Finally, climate and energy campaigner for Sierra Club Canada Crystal Lameman addressed the crowd, and talked passionately about issues relating to land use and exploitation by Canada’s government and private companies over the years. She encouraged people to think about how to challenge such institutions who, as she put it, “keep making stupid decisions.” This call to action on the part of Lameman closed the keynote speaker’s event and set the tone for the rest of the Fossil Free Canada Convergence.

For more information on the divestment campaign in Concordia, visit divestconcordia.org.

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