Simon Fraser University students keep up fight against Goldcorp donation

The controversy over the $10-million donation by Vancouver-based mining company Goldcorp to Simon Fraser University is far from over.

On Thursday (January 27), a group of SFU students and staff will stage a protest coinciding with a meeting of the university’s board of governors.

The move follows what protest organizers claim were failed attempts to have the board listen to their concerns.

The action will be held at 3 p.m. outside SFU Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver.

“We were concerned that SFU was helping to ”˜Charitywash’ Goldcorp because claims from human rights and environmental organizations’ reports accused the mining giant of violating environmental standards and human rights, especially of Indigenous people,” Myka Tucker-Abramson states in a news release.

Tucker-Abramson is a member of the SFU Teaching Support Staff Union.

According to the release, a student group called SFU Against Goldcorp and Gentrification initiated an ad hoc coalition of students, faculty, and SFU union workers to hold the SFU administration accountable.

The release notes that Tucker-Abramson and SAGG approached the SFU board of governors with letters and petitions, and through two public discussion forums. As well, the board received but refused three formal requests from concerned quarters of the university to present their demands.

“Students and faculty are frustrated at the University administration’s lack of willingness to listen to our concerns about Goldcorp’s $10 million dollar donation,” Tucker-Abramson says in the release. “SFU administration has assured us that SFU is a community driven university but they have refused every attempt from students and faculty to discuss this controversial donation. It’s a backroom deal, and it doesn’t feel like any community I’ve been part of.”

In September, SFU announced that Goldcorp contributed $5 million to SFU’s capital campaign. The university also made it known that it received another $5 million from the company in the form of the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Community Endowment, which will finance community-engagement programs in the Downtown Eastside.

SFU has named its new arts facility in the Woodward’s complex the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

Comments

17 Comments

David Kendall

Jan 26, 2011 at 5:31pm

These twerps believe every bit of propaganda put out by environmental groups who would have us all living in caves. You can thank industries like mining for underpinning our economy including the Canadian dollar which is trading at par with the US dollar. To think the Canadian taxpayer through student loans (a large percentage of which will never be paid back) is funding these idiots.

Steve Y

Jan 26, 2011 at 10:50pm

As an SFU alum, I have to say this is ridiculous. Perhaps when these students graduate into the real world they will realize how sillly they are being.

welldoneson

Jan 27, 2011 at 7:36am

Good Lord, lefty antis are singularly impressed with themselves,
for no reason any reasonable mind can fathom... we've heard and heard your "demands", and they go something along the lines of "we want low tuition and you better not accept millions of dollars from anyone we're brainwashed to dislike!"

Your cynical efforts to poison young people
against our very way of life are absolutely disgusting.
Tell you what, numbskulls, YOU cough up ten million dollars,
then maybe SFU will give a flying fish's fart about your views.

Until then why don't you just mind your own business.

Marlin Murphy

Jan 27, 2011 at 8:41am

These lefties have no idea on reality, they likely are living off mommy and daddy and have never held a real paying job in their life. Their only source of income is either mommy or daddy or as paid activitists from US foundations trying to drive businesses out of Canada so that US business can replace the Canadian business.

Marco

Jan 27, 2011 at 9:46am

It's really sad to see that these anti-business, socialist lideologues try to get in the way of well-intended and positive philanthropy. We need more of this and not less, and we need to encourage successful businesses to give back more to society, not less. How do these protesters propose we create the kind of prosperity we need to fund the quality of life and human rights they claim to aspire to. Do we need to go back to state-owned enterprises, like the Soviet Union of old?

Lindsay Keir

Jan 27, 2011 at 11:40am

Maybe SFU should present a non-optional course called "The Real World and Why You're Not Part Of It"? Also make it part of their employees Human Resources indoctrination.

kris krug

Jan 27, 2011 at 4:58pm

i support the students. you become the people you hang around. gold corp has a bad rep and the students don't want their money. it's their decision.

Caitlin Murphy

Jan 27, 2011 at 5:17pm

This is a hard one. On one hand, every University needs money and that $10 million is going towards what could be good projects- maybe it is "dirty" money, but money is money and if it is funding something good, well, it's hard to argue with that.

On the other hand, these students are going to a University that apparently claims to be community-oriented and yet they haven't really been open to the protests of the students and faculty.

All-together I am a bit on the fence about this, admittedly leaning towards the side of the university understanding that that money could create something good; However, it is difficult to say that when Goldcorp has a bad rep, is possibly not the best business out there, and therefore, as Kris said, "you become the people you hang around"

Ivan Drury

Jan 27, 2011 at 10:11pm

This demo was based on the idea that we don't have to accept the conditions presented to us; the choice is not Goldcorp money or no school... we believe it is a social responsibility and obligation to make education accessible to all. The state should fully fund public education.

AH126

Jan 28, 2011 at 1:09am

These SFU students are an embarrassment, thankfully I am not an alumni of SFU. To the left wing arts students of SFU that are clearly disconnected from reality, I ask you this: would you protest the governments funding of your education because you disagreed with some of their policies? I think not. Please grow up, you are an embarrassment to young generations everywhere.