B.C. forest company says rule of law must apply to ongoing protests at Fairy Creek
Global News
A lawyer for a B.C. forest company wants the court to defend the rule of law at a protest site on southern Vancouver Island, where more than 1,000 people have been arrested.
A lawyer for a British Columbia forest company says it wants the court to defend the rule of law at a protest site on southern Vancouver Island, where more than 1,000 people have been arrested during ongoing protests over old-growth logging.
Lawyer Dean Dalke, representing Teal Cedar Products Ltd., told a B.C. Appeal Court panel Monday that the company has been the victim of an unlawful, highly organized protest campaign to disrupt it from accessing its legal timber rights in the Fairy Creek area on Vancouver Island.
The company is appealing a decision from a B.C. Supreme Court judge in September that denied its application to extend a court injunction against protest blockades in the area for one year.
“This appeal is about whether the court will uphold the rule of law in the face of a campaign of unlawful blockages,” Dalke told the hearing.
Lawyers for the protest group known as the Rainforest Flying Squad are scheduled to present their arguments in court Tuesday.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson refused to extend the injunction that was set to expire in September, saying that police enforcement led to serious infringements of civil liberties, including impairment of the freedom of the press.
The injunction remains in place after Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein granted a temporary stay last month in order to allow Teal Cedar to appeal the lower court decision.
Dalke told the Appeal Court on Monday that protesters mounted a protracted campaign of interference prior to the granting of an injunction last April and they have continued ever since.
