National Call of Action Against 2010 Corporate Sponsors

DIRTY MONEY FOR DIRTY OIL

In the lead up to the 2010 Winter Games, host communities have been organizing to expose the impact of the Games on indigenous communities, low-income and homeless populations, public services, and the environment. While we continue to expose the impact of the Games themselves, anti-Olympic organizers in Vancouver want to make sure that the spotlight is directed at the social and environmental crimes of the corporate sponsors as well.

Some of the sponsors of the 2010 Games are among the most notorious corporate criminals, having devastated communities and environments around the world. These include General Electric, the world’s largest corporation, war profiteer, beneficiary of the 2008 financial bailout in the US and financier of the “ruin of the river” private power projects in BC; and Coca Cola, the corporation responsible for the murder of trade unionists in Latin America, depletion of ground water and destruction of surface water needed by vulnerable communities in India, major profiteer from the commodification of water, and beneficiary of monopoly contracts at schools and universities across the country.

As social and environmental justice organizers, we have been given a unique opportunity to expose the crimes of these corporations and counter the green marketing they are attempting to promote during the Games. The primary concern of the Olympic organizing committee is to protect the brand names of the Olympics and its sponsors. We can target their most important and vulnerable reason to be involved with the Games - the marketing opportunity.

Olympic national partner The Royal Bank Canada (RBC) has been identified by the Rainforest Action Network as the biggest financiers of the Tar Sands, and has also sponsored Oil Sands Discovery center in Fort McMurray that serves as a propaganda tool for the industry. The Tar Sands are clearly the most environmentally destructive project on the planet, destroying indigenous lands, emitting more Greenhouse Gases than hundreds of countries, poisoning the watershed for the entire Athabasca region. Even the Government of Alberta has now confirmed elevated levels of rare cancers in the downstream Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan.

TAKING ACTION AT A ROYAL BANK NEAR YOU!

Every Friday at 12 noon
Starting October 16th

Beginning in the month of October, we are asking activists to be present at local RBC branches across the country every Friday noon hour with banners and flyers. We hope to have hundreds of actions across the country especially to compliment actions against the launch of the Royal Bank sponsored Olympic Torch Relay in Victoria on Friday October 30th.

>>> FIND A BRANCH NEAR YOU!

Simply google search “the Royal Bank” and the name of your city/town if you are not already aware of a bank near your home or workplace. Be sure to inform us about which branch you will be targeting and we can then ask others to join you or be present at another branch to cover as many locations as we can. Send an email to: 2010corporatecampaign@gmail.com A map of all locations will be updated online.

>>> DOWNLOAD MATERIALS

Leaflets will be available to download by October 9th 2009.

2010 CORPORATE CAMPAIGN

This call to action is being coordinated by organizers in Vancouver that have decided to take focused action against the corporate sponsors of the 2010 Games in support of and in solidarity with the diverse movements in opposition to the Olympic Industry and its impacts. There will be future calls to action against other corporate sponsors.

This first call for action against the Royal Bank is endorsed by:
Indigenous Environmental Network, Rainforest Action Network, Olympic Resistance Network, Oilsandstruth.org and Council of Canadians – BC/Yukon Region.

If your organization would like to endorse this call please contact us by email: 2010corporatecampaign@gmail.com

BUILDING THE MOVEMENT

While the organizers of the 2010 Winter Games are struggling to get volunteers, let’s show them that opposition to the Olympics and their sponsors runs deep. By encouraging everyone you know to support the indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan downstream of the Tar Sands, opposing the Tar Sands project, and exposing the 2010 Games for what they really represent, we may just have more “volunteers” than they do.

Ultimately we hope that this simple act done by enough people across the country will help us build a movement against the Olympics Industry, the Tar Sands and in defense of indigenous struggles for land in the lead up to the 2010 Winter Games.

2010 CONVERGENCE!

A reminder that organizers in Vancouver are helping to organize a convergence from Feb. 10th to 15th in response to the call that came from the international resolution passed by over 1500 Indigenous delegates at the Intercontinental Indigenous Peoples Gathering in Sonora, Mexico to “boycott the 2010 Olympic Games.”