BC Logging Court Order in Fairy Creek Extension Denied by Judge | The Canadian News

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has denied a forestry company’s request to extend an injunction against blockades of people who oppose cutting down old trees in a remote area of ​​southern Vancouver Island.

Judge Douglas Thompson says in a written decision that the factors in favor of extending the injunction at Fairy Creek north of Port Renfrew do not outweigh the public interest in protecting the reputation of the court.

Thompson’s ruling also lifted the court order Tuesday afternoon.

“In the current circumstances, I am not convinced that the balance of convenience favors the extension of the court order,” Thompson writes in his 32-page decision. “The factors in favor of the court order do not outweigh the public interest to protect the court from the risk of further depreciation of its reputation.”

There have been more than 1,000 arrests in Fairy Creek since the original warrant went into effect in April.

Forestry company Teal Cedar Products Ltd. requested a one-year extension of the injunction during court hearings in Nanaimo earlier this month, arguing that the protests were hampering the company’s legal rights to harvest timber.

During the hearings, the court heard lawyers representing the protesters arguing that people from all walks of life with environmental concerns were being treated as terrorists.

Thompson says in its ruling that the methods of enforcement of the warrant at the protest site have resulted in a serious and substantial violation of civil liberties.

He says Teal Cedar and the RCMP asked the court to spend more than its “reputational capital” by issuing an order that would hold off protesters who may or may not be in breach of the court order.

“Another option available is to get the court out of the center of this dispute and let the government and the police do what they want with the tools at their disposal: patrolling the roads and other legal preventive police measures, mobilizing criminal law, and using of provincial laws such as the Law of Forest and Grassland Practices ”, says the ruling.

“And, if the means available to ensure that the rights legally granted by the legislature can be exercised are not adequate, there are legislative options.”

The British Columbia government approved a request from three Vancouver Island First Nations to temporarily defer the felling of old trees on some 2,000 hectares in the Fairy Creek and central Walbran areas, but protests continued. The protesters known as the Rainforest Flying Squad said that primary forests outside the deferred areas were still at risk of being cut down.

Teal Cedar says in a statement that it is reviewing the decision and will consider its options, adding that its work in the area “is important and responsible, vital to maintaining hundreds of jobs in the province and producing products that we all trust. the days”.

Attorney Phil Dwyer, who represented several members of the Rainforest Flying Squad, called the decision a “great victory.”

“This is a very important decision,” he said in an interview. “It’s really difficult to say right now what is going to happen on the ground.”

During court hearings, an attorney for the Mounties said police were tasked with enforcing a court order in increasingly difficult circumstances.

Thompson’s ruling says the RCMP acted with “reasonable force” for much of the warrant period, but some video evidence presented during the hearings showed “disturbing lapses in reasonable crowd control.”

“A series of images shows a police officer repeatedly removing COVID masks from the faces of protesters while he was about to apply pepper spray. Another shows a police officer grabbing a protester’s guitar and throwing it to the ground, where another officer trampled it and kicked what was left of it on the side of the road, “he wrote.

Thompson says the RCMP’s enforcement of the injunction has an adverse impact on the reputation of the court.

“The evidence before me indicates that the RCMP has stopped searching pedestrians, but continues to enforce exclusion zones that are wider than the law allows. Furthermore, the right of access of the media continues to be unduly restricted ”.