Content Warning: Physical violence, sexual violence
For years, campus environmental activist groups, such as Divest McGill and Climate Justice Action McGill, have been vocal about their demands: McGill must stop coddling extractive industries, namely fossil fuel and mining companies. From gold mining tycoon and heavy fossil fuel investor Seymour Schulich’s $20 million donation to McGill in 2005, to McGill’s own asbestos industry propagandist, Professor J. C. McDonald, to whom the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association gave one million dollars to produce phony research in 1997, the ethical baggage of McGill’s extractive past and present weighs heavily on students’ consciences and futures. There’s a reason that an environmental ethics professor resigned from his post at McGill over McGill’s embarrassing failure to divest three times in a row—the ethics of investing in industries that perpetuate environmental colonialism and slowly drag us towards a looming climate crisis, far outweighs any argument, financial or other, in their favour.