People make their way past the Bank of Montreal (BMO) building in the Financial District of Toronto, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
The head of BMO defended the bank’s climate efforts as it faced shareholder resolutions at its annual general meeting that called for more clarity on its plans.
Investors and activists pushed the bank to disclose how it approaches climate lobbying and policy efforts, and how its renewable energy funding compared with its fossil fuel funding, among other resolutions.
The meeting on Friday came the same week that BMO again hosted the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in Toronto, which climate advocates said brought the bank’s commitment to climate action in doubt.
“Associating with CAPP has deeply damaged your credibility with parents across the country,” Gabrielle Willms, representing the For Our Kids advocacy group, said at the meeting.
“This decision calls into question BMO’s commitment to achieving your net-zero targets, and contravenes your own lobbying policy to align with the Paris Agreement.”
BMO chief executive Darryl White said the bank is committed to being the lead partner for companies in the energy transition, and part of that means meeting with energy advocates on both sides.
“We are involved in many associations, who have different points of view, and we recognize that there are different points of view in this meeting as well,” said White.
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BMO’s involvement in various associations is all about being the lead transition partner for their clients, and making sure there’s dialogue on that transition, he said.
“All lead to the same place, which is the ability to convene a conversation, and not send those different points of view back into corners, which we believe is absolutely crucial in a transition that we’re committed to to 2050 and beyond.”
The shareholder resolution proposed by Investors for Paris Compliance focused on having BMO better disclose what all of its various associations are, and where it focuses its policy advocacy.
The bank is somewhat contradicting itself, said Matt Price, executive director of the climate group, in that BMO is pushing for its own clients to better disclose their policy work while neglecting to do its own.
“The bank totally gets this stuff, because they’re out there in the world pushing it, but then they themselves are not doing what they’re asking other people to do,” said Price in an interview.
“There’s kind of a hypocrisy.”
BMO, which urged shareholders to vote against the proposal, said in its proxy response that it already meets all disclosure requirements.
The proposal got 20 per cent support at the AGM.
The other proposal, about the bank disclosing how its low-carbon and high-carbon energy funding compare, got 32 per cent support.
The proposal, put forward by SHARE, was also tabled at TD and CIBC. A similar proposal at Scotiabank was withdrawn because the bank agreed to disclose the ratio, while RBC last year agreed to do so.
BMO said in its response that there’s no standardized way of establishing the ratio and it already makes other disclosures.
According to a BloombergNEF report out in January, BMO had the worst ratio of all the global big banks measured with a ratio of 23 cents going to low-carbon energy for every dollar going to fossil fuels in 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2025.
Companies in this story: (TSX:BMO)
The Canadian Press
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