All Out to Defend Rights and Lives!

Fairy Creek blockade, May 27, 2021

Journalists and the BC Civil Liberties Association are challenging the police actions violating the rights of hundreds of people at blockades near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. Blockades have been set up on access roads to Tree Forest Licence (TFL) 46 where the owner of the licence, the logging company Teal-Jones, is planning to clear-cut an area containing old growth trees in the Fairy Creek area. The people who are protecting the old growth forests accuse the NDP government led by Premier John Horgan of refusing to follow his own election promise.

In 2019 the government commissioned a report on the management of old growth forests in BC which made 14 recommendations, one of which is that the government should "defer development in old growth forests where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss." The report was made public on September 11, 2020. Ten days later Premier Horgan called a snap election based on the self-serving calculation that the time was ripe for his party to secure a majority. In a deliberate attempt to woo voters concerned about sustainable forestry, he pledged to implement the 14 recommendations, indicating that his government would, indeed, defer development of old growth forests.[1] On one occasion he stated that "Many of our old growth stands are worth more standing up than they ever could be cut down, especially if we take a holistic approach that acknowledges broader benefits for communities and the environment."

The Fairy Creek blockades, coordinated by the Rainforest Flying Squad, were set up last August. The promises to protect the old growth have not been kept. As the months passed with no action from the government to stop the company from proceeding, the blockades have been strengthened. On April 1 Teal-Jones' court application for an injunction to remove the blockades was granted and on May 17 the RCMP began arresting people, including journalists and legal observers.

The RCMP have set up "exclusion zones" even though, as the BC Civil Liberties Association pointed out in an open letter to Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, and RCMP Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Strachan, "there is nothing in the injunction that prohibits movement in the area or peaceful protest." As well, instead of telling people engaged in the blockades that they can leave or be arrested, police in many cases have arrested people without warning, including legal observers and journalists. In an incident on May 25 outside Caycuse Camp an observer reported that a contingent of 50 to 60 police started arresting people without warning and that "They were very clearly pushing people out of the way to specifically grab people in legal observer vests and Indigenous youth." Nine Indigenous youth who are a part of the Braided Warriors group were arrested. Many people who were arrested that day weren't planning on being arrested but no one was allowed to leave once the arrests, which lasted up to 11 hours, began to take place. The arrest of journalists and legal observes is clearly intended to hide police actions from Canadians so as to continue to act with impunity. This is what Horgan calls "law and order." His "law and order" violates civil or Charter rights as well as Nuu-chah-nulth law and the human right to be.

The Canadian Association of Journalists, in a statement issued May 26, announced that on May 25 a coalition which includes the CAJ, Ricochet Media, The Narwhal, Capital Daily, Canada's National Observer, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), the Discourse and IndigiNews, had sent a formal letter to the RCMP. Included in their demands are:

- Immediately end the practice of applying exclusion zones to journalists so that they are able to record video and sound, conduct interviews and take photographs at a distance "sufficient to avoid any accidental interference with officers performing their duties."

- Refrain from using physical obstructions that block the view or prevent the media from capturing audio. Do not hold up tarps around arrests, place loud generators between journalists and arrests or position officers to block cameras.

- Allow journalists to move freely on site, not be corralled or forced to move as a group or with a police escort.

- Equipment of journalists must not be seized or otherwise interfered with.

- Immediately cease arresting or detaining journalists within injunction zones for asserting their right to document events.

The people at the camps continue to receive support from communities all over Vancouver Island and throughout the province, through actions at MLA's offices, street protests, material support and convoys that visit to bolster the lines. On May 25 over 75 seniors car-pooled from Victoria to show their support.