RCMP returns to Fairy Creek to enforce injunction

The RCMP says three people have been arrested after officers returned to the Fairy Creek Watershed on Vancouver Island, where protesters resumed their push against the logging of old-growth forests Tuesday.

This comes just less than a week after the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed the acquittal of one protester at the same site near Lake Cowichan because police failed to fully read out a court order.

The BC RCMP announced Tuesday morning it was resuming its enforcement of the injunction granted to Teal-Cedar Products Ltd. in April 2021, saying it had received “a series of complaints that the terms of the injunction have been violated over the previous several weeks.”

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.

Related articles: 

• B.C. extends deferral of old-growth logging in Vancouver Island’s Fairy Creek

• B.C. RCMP protest response under review; Fairy Creek class action filed

• B.C. Appeal Court extends injunction against protests at Fairy Creek

Mounties add officers were on site as of 9 a.m. Tuesday, at which time they told protesters who were blocking a bridge over the Gordon River that enforcement would be starting.

“They were provided an opportunity to abide by the terms of the injunction and leave the area, or relocate to the designated protest/observation area set up by the enforcement team, or face arrest,” the RCMP said in a release, previously noting that “arrests are made as a last resort.”

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. B.C.’s prosecution service dropped 146 cases after the high court’s decision last Thursday.

Meanwhile, during the course of enforcement Tuesday, the RCMP says one officer was “was allegedly assaulted by a suspect who then fled in the woods.”

“A detailed report to Crown counsel will be forwarded with consideration of criminal charge(s),” the force added.