In a talk Thursday night delivered via video link from his home in BC, renowned scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki told the gathered crowd online and at Convocation Hall that Mount Allison University should be ashamed of its resistance to divestment of the school’s endowment.
Suzuki spoke as part of the President’s Speaker Series and was responding to a question from student Helen Yao, on behalf of Divest MtA, a student group that has been working for the past 7 years to get Mount Allison to move its endowment fund investments out of fossil fuel industries. Yao asked Suzuki if he would consider endorsing the call for Mt A to divest. Suzuki responded, “of course.”
He went on, “I think it’s disgraceful that after seven years Mount Allison hasn’t divested. I think it’s a disgrace. And anybody associated with the university that takes climate change seriously should be embarrassed by this. If not embarrassed, ashamed.”
University President Dr. Jean Paul Boudreau was moderating the Q&A period after Suzuki’s talk, but did not respond directly to the rebuke from Suzuki.
Later in the Q&A session, another audience member got up to comment on divestment, saying she was a Mount A alumni who would not be donating to the university until the school had committed to divestment. She then posed a question to Dr. Boudreau, asking what it would take to get Mount Allison to divest. Boudreau deflected the direct question, but did say he had spoken to the university’s board of regents recently on the topic.
Divest Mt A member Kate DesRoches said in a message Friday that the group thanked Suzuki for “his powerful and unapologetic endorsement” and hoped that “Dr. Boudreau and the rest of the Mount Allison administration will seriously reflect on Dr. Suzuki’s words.”
