If one ever wanted to find an example of the collision of the progressive narrative with the more real world of economics and industry, especially in British Columbia, one could do no better than looking to the logging industry of this Province. There is no need to talk about the obvious and well documented economic impact logging has had for this part of the world; it has been the primary and overwhelming industrial force in terms of economic growth and prosperity. It is also highly predictable therefore that the environmental warriors, including the fringe factions of the movement in the west, would naturally gravitate to and stake their ground on Vancouver Island. The war on “The Man” fits comfortably in the granola hemp-weaving establishment of the Island, surrounded as they are by old growth timber. It makes for an interesting philosophical coming together as there is a large divide between the folks on the Island who work and live in saw dust covered Wild Ass logger pants, and those sporting tie-dye shirts and harem pants.
This story starts in 2020, when the NDP government granted timber licences to an area north east of Port Renfrew, in the Fairy Creek watershed on Vancouver Island. Since that time the eco-warriors have declared and waged war against the Teal Cedar Products Limited, a member of the Teal-Jones group. Teal Cedar employs about 450 workers, and their logging permit allows them to harvest “old growth timber”. The contract for this project was estimated by Teal to be about $20 million in value. Keep that figure in mind when we go through the costs in this log cutting eco-war.
The protests started right away, and the company complained continually about their employees being harassed and their equipment damaged. One should be mindful of the fact that most of these protests and the protestors themselves are not necessarily “peaceful”– this is not a 1960’s sit in. In fact it became and has been labelled “one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canadian history”.
Of course, this all led to an injunction being granted to remove the protestors in April 2021, that was needed to be enforced by the RCMP, but in particular the E division’s C-IRG (Community – Industry Reserve Group). Protests against economic development, such as pipelines and logging have become so predominant in British Columbia, that the RCMP felt the need to create a new separate section in 2017– just to deal with all the protests. This Mountie group was going to bring with it “strategic oversight…” and it would be based on the “Gold,Silver, Bronze command structures”. Anyone who reads this blog over time has come to realize, that as soon as one hear the words, strategic, and oversight, and it then gets lumped in with Gold, Silver, Bronze– one should automatically think bureaucracy and too many supervisors. The Mounties have an Egyptian love of pyramids in terms of structural organizations, and why have a single layer of supervision, when you can add a couple of more layers of oversight and decision making?
So how has it been going? To date at least 1188 individuals have been arrested, 900 for breach of a court ordered injunction, 200 with obstruction, and 12 assaults on police officers.
The activists are being fronted by an organization called the Rainforest Flying Squad. They are led by people like Kathleen Code who sums up the police action in their enforcement of the injunction as being there only to “knock the heads of peaceful protestors”.
This is never an easy situation for the police, you are being summoned to enforce the law, and you are up against a group who have no room for negotiation, in their view only a stoppage in the the logging can be tolerated. These activists for the most part, have no personal or vested responsibility in these situations, other than a hardened belief in their cause.
The Fairy Creek situation, seemingly like all things in British Columbia, is further complicated because of the Indigenous involvement and their various factions. One of the Indigenous First Nations, the Pacheedaht own three sawmills, and have a revenue-sharing agreement with the Province for a sharing of the proceeds from this particular timber contract. But there is a problem here as well, because the Indigenous groups are also divided, some welcoming the protestors, others scorning them and in their political power shared system, the elders of the Indigenous, are not in concert with the pro-logging groups of their Council.
In terms of protestor strategy, one would have thought that if one wished to protest, should be centred on the Provincial government policy and the granting of the licence in Victoria. In British Columbia of course, it is the NDP government that is in power, normally best political friends with any fringe eco viewpoint, but the fact that the protestors go after a private entity rather than camp out in Victoria is in itself interesting. The protest effort worked to a certain degree when the Province did agree during all this upheaval, to a two year deferral for the “old growth” logging component.
So after all the arrests the protest groups, wanted to challenge in any way possible the court injunction, and turned to the usual lawyers based out of Victoria who specialize in protest law. Those lawyers decided that the legal argument that they could possibly raise was that the legal “script” read to the protestors prior to them being forced to move out of the way and facing arrest if they did not do so– was flawed. They had discovered that in several cases, the RCMP read a “shortened script”. Grasping at this apparent legal straw, they wanted to argue that the protestors were therefore not given enough “actual knowledge” of what the injunction contained.
So began the King versus Emily Henderson “also known as Ryan Henderson” case.
The single bare issue is that in order for the police to establish criminal contempt, one had to establish “actual knowledge” or “wilful blindness” to the terms of the injunction. Justice Douglas Thompson of the BC Supreme Court in Nanaimo was a willing audience, and eventually held that even though the injunction itself was not ambiguous, he did agree with the protestor defence team that “the script did not provide sufficient information to fix the respondent with actual knowledge of its material terms, and there was insufficient evidence that the respondent was wilfully blind to those terms”. The Crown was with little doubt somewhat perplexed as would anybody in reading this decision, so they appealed it to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada were not willing to get involved– and turned down the Crown appeal with no reasons given.
Admittedly it is not unusual in these days, that common sense seems a little in short supply when it comes to the law, and it quite often appears that reality seems to sometimes take a back seat to the exactitude of the written legal argument. But here we are given to believe in this legal argument that Henderson, standing facing a group of RCMP officers, who are reading them a script in the middle of the woods, which in essence was commanding them to leave– we are being asked to believe that the script was insufficient for them to understand the meaning and the intent of the injunction, and therefore the intent of the police in being there. Nobody that has ever stood in that position would believe that they did not understand why the police were there. Nobody. It is also well known that if you want to find some self-educated lawyers, find any protest group, as they are the first ones to tell you “they know the law”.
What did this legal “victory” mean or accomplish. Nothing, absolutely nothing. It just put everyone back to square one. Crown Counsel had to find the other 146 cases where the persons involved were read the same “shortened” script and drop those cases. They stated that “Those cases have been dropped because their ability to succeed was placed in doubt”. There are still 210 cases before the courts.
On Tuesday of this week, the RCMP was back at the blockades, as were the protestors. Three people were once again arrested, and one was arrested for assaulting a police officer. The RCMP says that there have been “numerous violations of persons obstructing, impeding and having interfered with forestry operations”. There also have been further reports of harassment and vandalism to the forestry workers and their equipment.
To date the RCMP has spent $18,716,969 in Fairy Creek, most of that in wages. The courts have been jammed with cases, but there is no estimate of that legal bill to date.
The C-IRG continues to bend over backwards to accommodate the “Indigenous cultural matters” and have had to go to class to learn of such things as the “handling of sacred items during protest arrests” and to make sure that they are operating “consistent with the standards and expectations set by bill C-15 and the adoption of the principles of UNDRIP (the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) .” That no doubt was probably a Gold Command decision.
However despite all this genuflection to the woke, the C-IRG, to add insult to injury, is now being investigated by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission after receiving complaints from these same protestors in March 2023. They are going to look into the “activities and operations of the C-IRG and their systemic compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” Furthermore, this same allegedly independent body the CRCC , is another example of inert bureaucracy, so they have now hired an “Indigenous based law firm” to assist them. They have hired the renowned Turtle Island Law firm. A two person law firm which was formed in 2022, who say they are going to gather testimony “in a de-colonial, Indigenized, and trauma informed manner”. Enough said. Apparently no one can see the clear conflict of interest, just as no one should now expect an unbiased reporting.
So as of today, the protests will continue, the injunction will still need to be enforced, and this time the RCMP will no doubt read the full script– and then this whole circle dance of ridiculousness will continue.
Photo Courtesy of deejayqueue via Flickr Commons – Some rights reserved
Behind the Yellow Tape 