With contributions by Roy L Hales

Representatives from a Victoria group of seniors called Elders for Ancient Trees held a press conference Friday to discuss ongoing RCMP disregard for a BC Supreme Court ruling, which reiterated that the police have no authority to obstruct lawful access to the Fairy Creek blockade area.

“One of our main messages is the actual frightening quality of what is happening in terms of our democracy and our right to protest. This is a series of police actions that seems almost military, and that is very frightening in terms of looking at our whole society," said Susan Gage.

Susan team of the Rainforest Flying Squad (RFS), the organization behind the Fairy Creek blockades. Matthew Nefstead from Lyons Law Firm represented members of the Elders as well as the RFS, in the court case seeking relief from contentious acts of enforcement by the RCMP.

“We've seen police relying on this practice of establishing exclusion zones more and more over the last few years, to insulate themselves from public scrutiny...it's not up to the police to make all the decisions themselves, they must operate within the legal framework that they've been given," Nefstead said.

The court documents released on Aug. 9 by the Hon. Justice Douglas Thompson read, “I concluded that the RCMP has not shown that their exclusion zones and associated checkpoints are reasonably necessary to carry out their enforcement duties. In short, these RCMP blockades are unlawful.”

Further on, Justice Thompson states that the “right to be left alone by the state is a basic constitutional principal...People transiting through TFL 46 [where Teal Jones logging corporation is operating], and those heading up to the Fairy Creek watershed or other places within TFL 46 — whether to hike, camp, or protest — have the right to be left alone, save as the law otherwise provides."

CKTZ News received an emailed response from Sgt. Janelle Shoihet, senior media relations officer in the RCMP East Division Headquarters.

“Since the judge’s oral decision was delivered on July 20th, we have made adjustments and conduct assessments on a daily basis on the location of those temporary exclusion zones and access control points to ensure we are aligned with the court’s direction to keep the two locations as close together as possible. And we have continued to provide media and public access to the area, based on each day’s police enforcement activities," Shoihet stated.

But Rani Earnhart, a speaker at the Friday press conference, said illegal exclusion zones are still in operation.

“Today, Friday, August 13, the use of the illegal exclusion zones is continuing in the field…Access has been denied to all people, including members of the public, the peaceful forest defenders, our legal observers and support people, and many members of the media. These actions are in clear contravention of Judge Thompson's order and could be considered contempt of court on the part of the RCMP," she said.

The Elders for Ancient Trees arrive at Fairy Creek on Aug. 13. Photo courtesy of Elders for Ancient Trees.

Judge Thompson also cited pre-existing challenges to “the RCMP’s use of expansive exclusion zones during large-scale protests,” such as complaints “from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs” in January of 2020.

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP (the “CRCC”) investigated the actions taken by the police, and a February 2020 statement from the chairperson read, “the case law provides that the police have the power to create buffer zones for specific, well-defined purposes, but that this is not a general power and instead must be temporally, geographically, and logistically responsive to the circumstances.”

At the same time as Friday’s morning press conference, a busload of Elders for Ancient Trees traveled from Victoria to Fairy Creek, where police had moved into HQ, the central protesters camp, last Monday, the one-year anniversary of the blockades. The arriving activists were welcomed by Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones. Pam Fitzgerald, a member of Elders for Ancient Trees, reported from the frontlines, where the seniors were forced to leave their bus and walk for several kilometers in extreme heat, only to be denied entry at the next police checkpoint.

Members of the group of Elders took turns speaking, and several crossed the arbitrary RCMP exclusion line, knowing it would result in their immediate arrest. One of them quoted Martin Luther King, Jr, before stepping over the line, saying “it’s our moral responsibility to defy unjust laws.”

As of Saturday, Aug. 14, the RCMP report to have made 622 individual arrests at the Fairy Creek blockades since mid-May; 97 of these occurred since Monday, Aug. 9.