$150,000 Award Rejected due to Immoral Investments

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The insurance company Aviva gives a cash award for community groups that make a positive change, one of their winners this year rejected the financial award. Indigenous Climate Action were thrilled to found out they won, but not so thrilled when they found out that one issue they are campaign against is backed by Aviva. It turns out that Aviva invests in the tar sands. As a result, ICA stood their ground and turned down the money. It’s good to see that a group that could really benefit from additional resources stayed true to their mandate.

Shortly after receiving news they were winners in the competition, ICA received information that Aviva plc, Aviva Canada’s parent company, held major passive investments (over half a billion  USD) in corporations operating in Alberta’s tar sands, including: Teck Resource Ltd (Frontier Open pit mine), Encana, Exxon, Imperial, Suncor, Chevron, Cenovus, Kinder Morgan (TransMountain pipeline), TransCanada (Keystone XL pipeline); and Enbridge (Line 3 pipeline)1. These investments, according to ICA, are in direct contradiction with their organizational mandate.

“We cannot in good conscience accept an award from a corporation that is financially associated with fossil fuel energy projects that violate the rights of Indigenous peoples and contribute to global climate change. Our organization is working to support Indigenous rights and address the climate crisis while Aviva is investing in corporations proposing or operating tar sands projects that threaten water, land, the climate and Indigenous rights,” stated Eriel Deranger, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action.

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