Fairy Creek protesters aren't terrorists, lawyers argue during third day of hearings on injunction
CBC
The B.C. Supreme Court heard Thursday from lawyers who say peaceful protesters with concerns about protecting old-growth trees from logging on South Vancouver Island are being treated like terrorists by the police and forestry company Teal Jones.
The lawyers represent about half a dozen people who oppose a court application by Teal Cedar Products Ltd. to extend a B.C. Supreme Court injunction order against old-growth logging blockades in the Fairy Creek watershed area until late September 2022.
Teal Cedar lawyer Dean Dalke told the court Tuesday the blockades are impeding the company's legal rights to harvest timber and alleged the protesters' actions pose dangers to employees and the RCMP.
Over 1,000 people have been arrested just north of Port Renfrew since mid-May when the RCMP began enforcing the injunction. Eleven were arrested on Thursday alone.
Thursday marked the third consecutive day of hearings related to RCMP enforcement at the blockades.
Nanaimo lawyer Elizabeth Strain argued that police were intentionally terrorizing protesters.
"There are [people] who've put themselves in terribly dangerous situations … because they are terrified for their future," she said, "and they're being met with militarized, aggressive force."
2 women who died trying to save turtle on road in Chatham-Kent, Ont., remembered for love of animals
It was a shock to Dorothy Suliga when she learned that her mother, Teresa Suliga, and her aunt, Elizabeth Seremak, had been struck and killed by a vehicle on a rural road in Chatham-Kent.