After years of student pressure and negotiations, the University of Ottawa has decided not to renew its lease with RBC. RBC is one of the world’s leading financiers of fossil fuel expansion, directly contradicting the university’s climate commitments and the values of many students who rely on campus spaces. For the students of UOttawa, the issue was not just symbolic—RBC’s presence represented the normalization of climate harm within public institutions.
Over five years ago, a group of students at the University of Ottawa launched an initiative to get “RBC off-campus”. After the bank, one of the largest climate financiers in the world, took over a 24/7 study space during COVID, students knew what they had to do.
Students, including CAFES alumna Mary Stuart, launched a campus club—Climate Justice Climatique uOttawa (CJCUO)—that would start a campaign ultimately resulting in RBC leaving campus. I had the privilege of being part of that work and witnessing the activism, organizing, and negotiations from the inside.
Understanding how this small, ragtag group of students was able to defeat one of the largest banks in Canada can help environmental activists and organizers across Ottawa win their own campaigns.
It started by building alliances. CJCUO reached out to the student union, the Indigenous Students Association (ISA), the Palestinian Student Association, University of Ottawa NDP, and others, many of whom took on the initiative in their own right. While the ISA and student union negotiated with the university, CJCUO with the support of other clubs organized sit-ins, protests, and information pickets, building public pressure and making RBC’s operation on campus a nuisance.
After years of this work, RBC’s C-suite requested to meet with students. Representatives from CJCUO, the ISA, and the student union met with senior RBC executives, including John Stackhouse, in a discussion moderated by the university. Concerns were raised and shared, and frankly, the unprepared RBC leadership embarrassed itself. The meeting marked one of the first times RBC apologized for its staff calling the police on students, for derogatory comments made toward organizers, and agreed to abide by university policy.
Negotiations with the university continued, led by the ISA and student union, while CJCUO turned up the pressure. In one instance, police were called to a massive sit-in, during which officers told students they ‘they had to skip a home invasion to be here’. The comment sparked immense backlash and mobilized many previously unpolitical students.
After years of negotiations and sustained pressure, the University of Ottawa decided not to renew RBC’s lease—marking one of the first major student-led victory against the bank. It was the result of a two-pronged approach: building grassroots disruption and “nuisance actions” through sit-ins and protests, paired with institutional negotiations led by the ISA and student union. For organizers in Ottawa, the lesson is clear: without negotiations, the sit-ins likely would have accomplished little—but without the disruption and nuisance actions, there would have been no urgency for negotiations to happen or be taken seriously.
You can read more about the story here:
https://thefulcrum.ca/uncategorized/rbc-branch-set-to-be-removed-from-campus-spring-2026-ending-a-long-fought-battle-by-indigenous-students/
Written by James Adair (former CAFES staff and student at the University of Ottawa)
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