Kingston climate activists rally for second annual ‘Fossil Fools Day’

Seniors with SCAN as well as other Kingston, Ont., climate action groups gathered in front of RBC downtown to protest the institution's spending on fossil fuels.

For the second year in a row, members of Seniors for Climate Action Now, or SCAN, gathered in front of the Royal Bank of Canada branch on Princess Street in Kingston, Ont.

The group is protesting the financial institution’s investments in fossil fuels. SCAN partnered with a handful of other local climate action groups to divest more than $3 million of their own money from RBC in the last year to send a message.

SCAN member Nancy Nicol says she thinks it’s working.

“They’ve recently come out with an announcement that they will bring forward a motion in this AGM to uphold prior informed consent,” said Nicol.

Informed consent is playing a pivotal role in the decade-long battle by Wet’suwet’en people in British Columbia to prevent the construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline.

Nicol said SCAN’s mandate is to motivate seniors to take action, but their powerplay against one of Canada’s big banks couldn’t have happened without support from much younger folks from Queen’s University and local high schools.

“Quite frankly the young people that have been involved with the organizing that we’ve done have brought a tremendous amount of energy, skills, knowledge and abilities,” Nicol said.

For local high school student Abbie Miolee, who started the LaSalle Secondary School Earth Club, the help and guidance she’s received from older climate activists in Kingston has been invaluable.