An RCMP helicopter is seen patrolling the Fairy Creek logging area near Port Renfrew, B.C., on Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. Mounties are back enforcing an injunction on Vancouver Island less than a week after the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed the acquittal of a protester at the same site because police failed to fully read out the court's order. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
LAKE COWICHAN, B.C. – Mounties are back enforcing an injunction against anti-logging protesters on Vancouver Island less than a week after the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed the acquittal of a protester at the same site because police failed to fully read out a court order.
RCMP say in a statement that there have been numerous violations of the court-ordered injunction granted to Teal Cedar Products in April of 2021, so their officers have returned to the Fairy Creek Watershed near Lake Cowichan.
Police say there are reports that Teal Cedar’s employees are being harassed, equipment has been vandalized and the company has been prevented from harvesting timber.
The statement says officers will begin advising protesters blocking a bridge that they will enforce the injunction, and if they don’t move, they will face arrest.
Police say arrests are made as a last resort, however due to the ongoing nature of the complaints, they can no longer delay enforcing the injunction.
Confrontations between police and protesters have led to more than 1,100 arrests since 2021, but when a court tossed out one case because police didn’t read the entire injunction, dozens more acquittals followed and B.C.’s prosecution service dropped 146 cases after the high court’s decision last Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 15, 2023.
