Beating plastic oil drums and shouting slogans, about 20 protesters gathered outside TD Bank’s annual general meeting in Toronto on Thursday to denounce the bank’s involvement with Kinder Morgan’s controversial Trans Mountain pipeline project.

Meanwhile, inside the meeting, Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Simon reiterated his vow to shareholders to block the project with a co-ordinated campaign of civil disobedience.

“I said don’t be naive. If you think that you’re going to invest in these pipelines and you won’t see repercussions, you’re wrong,” Simon said.

“We saw what happened with the Dakota Access pipeline and the human rights and treaty abuses of the Sioux. You won’t be able to do that here,” he said.

In February, Reuters reported that Kinder Morgan had hired TD Bank as an adviser to help drum up financing for the controversial project, which won federal government approval in December.

The $6.8-billion Trans Mountain project would add 980 kilometres of new pipeline between Edmonton, Alta., and Burnaby, B.C., opening up a route to the Pacific for Alberta’s oilsands, the Star previously reported.

At the meeting, TD Bank’s CEO Bharat Masrani spoke to the issues raised by Simon and the anti-pipeline protesters.

“We understand and respect concerns raised about this engagement as well as the peaceful demonstrations that most people have used to express their views,” Masrani said, according to a transcript of his comments provided to the Star.

Masrani said the company has worked to “secure an independent human rights expert to conduct a review and advise the developers on how to improve their social policies and procedures moving forward.”

He also highlighted TD Bank’s work to become “the first North American bank to become carbon neutral,” and become “the only Canadian bank to be listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index last year.”

Grand Chief Simon helped form the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, a pact between 122 First Nations and tribes on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

The Tsleil-Waututh First Nation in B.C. is one of the treaty’s signatories, as is the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in North Dakota.

Simon said if his B.C. allies refuse to let the Trans Mountain pipeline through their traditional territory, pipeline proponents should understand they’re also picking a fight with treaty members across the country.

“If the Tsleil-Waututh say you’re not passing through their territory, you’d better take that as a ‘no,’ because otherwise you’ll also have a problem with the Mohawk,” Simon said.

Simon is no stranger to confrontation. He’s a veteran of the Oka Crisis in the summer of 1990, when Canadian Forces soldiers squared off against Mohawk activists over development plans on disputed territory.

“I don’t use Oka as a threat,” Simon said. “I use it as a lesson of the past. Can’t we somehow find a way to work together instead of being confrontational?” he said.

Outside the AGM, protesters from Leadnow said along with opposing the Trans Mountain project for environmental and indigenous rights reasons, the plan is also a risky financial investment.

“It could actually damage their brand and cost them customers,” said protest organizer Logan McIntosh.

“We’ve been inundated with pledges saying they will shut down their TD accounts if TD does not withdraw support for the pipeline expansions,” McIntosh said.

As part of the protest, large video screens displaying anti-pipeline comments that McIntosh said came from many of TD’s own customers circled the financial district on trucks.

McIntosh and her colleague Brittany Smith attended the meeting and presented an anti-pipeline petition they said had more than 25,000 names to CEO Bharat Masrani.

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“One woman stood up in the meeting and asked if she could add her name as well,” McIntosh said.

“There are over 18 legal challenges in place against Kinder Morgan,” McIntosh said.

“It’s not a time to be investing in dirty energy infrastructure. Instead we should be seeing a transition to a clean energy economy.”

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