Victoria council wants local governments to be able to divest themselves of investments in fossil fuels.
After hearing from several speakers Thursday, councillors passed a resolution calling for several actions relating to socially responsible investments, including:
• Asking the province to amend the Municipal Finance Authority Act to provide local governments with the autonomy to pursue socially responsible investments and climate action in financial decision-making.
• Requesting a report from the Municipal Pension Plan and the Municipal Finance Authority detailing the amounts of investments currently held in fossil fuel-related companies or investment products, and options for divesting them over the next five, 10 and 15 years.
• Asking the Municipal Finance Authority and the B.C. Investment Management Corporation to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in renewable sources of energy.
“I think this is a first step. I think there’s a number of steps the city will want to look at,” Coun. Ben Isitt said.
“We’ll want to be able to link up with other progressive municipalities. New Westminster has already been in communication since hearing about this initiative. Tofino council and Vancouver took a step before the City of Victoria, and I think a number of others will follow.”
Isitt suggests the city look to getting a resolution passed by the Union of B.C. Municipalities in 2016.
Only Coun. Geoff Young voted against the move, calling it hypocritical. It’s not the city’s job to give investment advice, he said.
“Others can take their own moral stance, but I feel I would be hypocritical, to suggest that I’m behaving ethically when I use my fossil-fuel investment, which as somebody pointed out is my Dodge Caravan minivan. And I drive into the gas station and I buy the gas from the gas station owner who has made a fossil-fuel investment,” Young said.
“Then I take the position that I am being morally ethical because all I’m doing is buying the gas and he’s being unethical because he’s invested in the fossil-fuel industry.
“I just don’t buy it.”
The city is enormously invested in the fossil-fuel industry as it builds and maintains roads and bridges, he said.
Coun. Pam Madoff said one doesn’t have to address “the entire continuum” to endorse the message.
“This is one step. It’s a baby step and it’s extremely difficult to implement it in a practical way. But we’re hearing more and more that this is an issue of global significance,” she said.
“If you’re not comfortable with the words ethical or the words ‘socially responsible,’ just call it smart investing.”
Mayor Lisa Helps agreed with Young that it’s not the city’s job to give investment advice.
“The proper purpose of this table is to steward taxpayers’ resources and the City of Victoria has $111 million of your money, of our money, in investments,” Helps said. “And it’s the proper purpose of this table to make sure that that is invested well and for the long term.”
One message heard loud and clear from the divestment movement over the past months has been that “we can’t reduce our reliance on fossil fuels overnight, but we can reduce our complicity,” Helps said.
“To me, that was a really important message to hear coming from the community.”
bcleverley@timescolonist.com
