A Christian Voice

Royal Bank Coerces Employees to Display "Rainbow Triangle"

by Charles McVety ,

October 1, 2004

The Royal Bank of Canada launched a sexual orientation campaign to request its employees to "be supportive" of "gay, lesbian and bisexual issues". Many believe the bank's executive is abusing its power as an employer by exerting their misguided "morality" with a full-scale assault on their workforce. Is this the beginning of the new Corporate Canada? How far will they go? The inference of this militant campaign is the bank will not tolerate "unsupportive" workers and that is discrimination and intolerance.

The bank opened the campaign with the first edition of a regular newsletter, Rainbow Space. The document "highlight(s) the importance of sexual preference as one of RBC's primary diversity elements". They make a strong appeal for employees to personally demonstrate support of homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues by displaying a rainbow coloured triangle on their "desk, cubicle, or office". Apparently displaying the sticker is voluntary, however the document goes on to imply that unsupportive co-workers are homophobic and won't be tolerated.

A new "underclass" of workers has been established.

The Rainbow Space campaign is not just an abuse of power; it is fanatically distorted. In their terminology section, the Royal Bank describes gender as something "assigned to them at birth". Basic commonsense is a child is born a boy or girl, however not according to the Royal Bank. The bank also uses "two-spirited", a religious term to describe "people who embody both the male and female spirit". In addition, the RBC categorically states "About 10 percent of the population, including within RBC's employees, is gay or lesbian." Statistics Canada recently did a survey and found that 1.0 percent of the population is homosexual or lesbian. The use of extremist terminology in an attempt to mislead employees is appalling.

With this campaign the Royal Bank of Canada is wandering from its core business of banking and entering into the field of propagating misguided morality. The newsletter leads you to believe that homophobia is a problem in the bank. It states "Many employees simply do not know the facts about GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered), while others are openly hostile" According to RBC Vice President and Executive Sponsor Jacki Challenger, "the Bank has no widespread homophobia". Why then is the Bank propagating their new morality? It appears that a new era of Inquisitions has begun with new standards of right and wrong and the Royal Bank is leading the way.

Almost five years ago the Royal Bank's vice-president announced that RBC is taking the lead on such issues as they sponsored the Toronto Gay Pride Parade. In 1999 VP Edmee Metivier, said "You don't always do sponsorship for the rewards, you do it for a good cause." Metivier added, "We respect the right of our customers to reject this idea. But we see ourselves as leaders". According to Tammi Lisson, Sr. Management Champion, the Rainbow Space operation has only reached 2,000 employees. Ms. Challenger, Vice-President, says the newsletter will soon be "corporate wide". The Royal Bank has 60,000 employees at 2,100 locations in Canada, the United States and 28 other countries. The bank spends $133 million dollars annually in employee learning initiatives and has massive resources. They administrate over $1.1 trillion dollars and donate or sponsor over $57 million annually to various causes. With homosexual, lesbian and bisexual issues as one of their "primary" core values, the bank promises to "lead" the corporate world in promoting extremist morality.

If unchallenged this militant campaign will spread from corporation to corporation--including Canada's largest employer, the government. It is conceivable that with-in a few months you will not be hired by corporate Canada or given a promotion unless you are "supportive" of homosexual, lesbian and bisexual issues. In an effort to stop this fanatical trend, Canada Family Action Coalition is calling upon all people of faith, good will and commonsense to boycott the Royal Bank, beginning October 4th by closing your personal and business accounts and refusing to invest in their misguided morality.

Watch a TV special from Word.ca to be aired on Sunday, October 3, 9 p.m. EST on Miracle CJIL , 11p.m. EST on CTS.