Education Bringing Youth Tobacco Truths (E-BUTT) is a Canadian student group devoted to terminating the financial relationship between the tobacco industry and academia. Our mandate is to lobby Canadian post-secondary institutions to implement policies forbidding the purchase of stocks or acceptance of research grants and donations from Big Tobacco.
EDMONTON - Bruce Saville, member of the board of governors of the University of Alberta, is under fire from an anti-tobacco student group for not supporting its campaign to ban tobacco-funded research money to the university.
In October, when a group of students from E-Butt (Education-Bringing Youth Tobacco Truths) approached Saville, he wouldn't take their pamphlet about getting big tobacco off campus, saying "No, I think dirty money is money."
The University of Alberta has invested approximately $2 million in Tobacco Industry stocks. Moreover, the University has also accepted nearly $1 million in funding during 2006-07.
According to Statistics Canada, tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in Canada, claiming nearly 37 000 lives every year.
Tobacco companies have established relationships with academic institutions in an effort to help promote tobacco use, distort science, and create diversions regarding the harmful nature of tobacco.
Moreover, the Board of Governors has ruled that the Students Union cannot accept tobacco industry funding thereby creating an unacceptable double-standard.
The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, the Faculty of Nursing and the School of Public Health have all recently voted to eliminate acceptance of tobacco industry funding.
A number of Canadian universities have severed financial ties with the tobacco industry, including the University of Lethbridge, the University of Toronto, and McGill University.
The University of Alberta’s financial ties with the tobacco industry are compromising the integrity of the institution, its faculty and its students.
Please sign the online petition so that the Administration knows that there are students who care, and who believe that accepting money from or investing money in the Tobacco Industry is wrong, if not by legal, but by ethical standards.
