British Columbia Police Chiefs and dereliction of duty

 

 

What do BC Police Chiefs have to do with the wildfires which are currently burning with a vengeance? Why am I so angry at them as I evidenced in my last post?  And why do I say they are not doing their job where protests are occurring in our forests?  Because BC Police Chiefs are not doing their jobs. They allow the BC Court System to do their jobs for them to the point dereliction of duty. 

What exactly am I talking about?  Most people by now know that when there are environmental protests in the woods blocking logging actions, an injunction sooner or later comes down from BC Courts and the police go in and arrest the protesters. Isn’t that what they are supposed to do? 

No, it is not. The police are supposed to take any lawbreaker into custody as soon as they find someone breaking the law. When the first protesters appear and physically impede or seek to impede the work of a licensed company, they are breaking the law and should immediately be arrested and taken into custody as any other lawbreaker would be. That’s the law.  And when the police do not arrest lawbreakers immediately, but instead are ordered by their Chiefs to stand down and wait sometimes days, weeks, or even months for a court injunction, the Police Chiefs are acting outside the law. The law is the Canadian Criminal Code.

People sometimes ask if what I am proposing (immediate arrest) would make things worse for environmental protesters in court. No. It would make the protestors’ court appearances profoundly better.   When one stands before the court to answer to a ‘coded crime’ one is under the protections of the Criminal Code. 

The Criminal Code says that any person arrested in Canada for breaking the law must appear before a judge and try to explain what the person’s motive was for breaking the law. Under the Criminal Code the protester’s motive for breaking the law is important an important part of the judicial process.

When arrested by injunction, discussion of these motives are neither allowed nor recognized by the Court. The only focus is on whether the defendant ‘broke’ the judge’s order (the injunction). Nothing else. The environmental arrestees are left standing naked before the court, unclothed by the rights of the Canadian Criminal Code which should be due every Canadian. Arrest by injunction takes the onus off the forests, logging companies, clear cutting, and the trashing of the forests to a single judge’s order that was broken. But there are possible alternatives to being a helpless blob.

If protestors are arrested under the Criminal Code, they can build a case around the rules of justice by using the argument logging companies are renters (paying very little at that). This is not the same thing as owning the forests and doing what they choose. It is not the same thing as being given the rights of private property as they, and the courts, seem to interpret tree farm licences. I think there is a very reasonable argument to be made that clear-cutting destroys the forests and no judge should allow a renter to completely destroy the property of the landlord and put an entire neighbourhood in danger. 

We need to be protesting not only the cutting of the forests, but also how protestors are arrested.

Individual policemen are not responsible for this muddled and horrific state of affairs. They do what they are ordered by their Chiefs. We the public, along with First Nations, are the landlords of the forests that are described as “public” forests, with the acknowledgement of First Nations original and still unceded ownership. This means that we also have the responsibility to identify those who are culpable in this destruction of public property. Those who willingly hold up the perversion of law in the name of law, are in dereliction of duty, ironically in the name of duty. And this dereliction includes not only the BC Police Chiefs but also the BC Attorney General. Next time.

 

There's a monster in the Fairy Creek Woods

 

Monster in the Woods by Elisa Gianola Fornari

As breaking heat waves wash over us in real time, it is wonderful to see the passion being expressed by the protesters and blockaders at Fairy Creek near Port Renfrew. Most of us know by now, or intuit, that mature forests moderate climate and indeed, even create climate. As our rain forests rapidly diminish to mere memories of themselves, there is also the ever-present threat of wildfire. But even worse, there is another destructive threat looming over the blockades at Fairy Creek - the monstrous use of court ordered injunctions that has already stolen most of our public forests. The continuing use of these inappropriate and unjust never-ending environmental court injunctions let loose by British Columbia courts anytime civil disobedience starts gaining traction is the unspoken monster in the woods.

Why do I compare court ordered environmental injunctions to monsters?  Because in my opinion, these injunctions are, in a very real sense dangerous and lawless. Why do I think this? Because the rules and regulations that govern the charge of disobeying an injunction, which usually results in Contempt of Court charges, stand outside the Criminal Code. I fear that at least some of the people who have been arrested will be surprised at what awaits them in the courtroom when they stand before a judge to try to explain themselves and their actions. They will find (unless things have changed enormously my time in front of the judges) that their assigned judge legally does not listen to, or care one continental damn about professions of sincere love of nature by the arrestees, or their climate change anxieties, our utter dismay at the callous nature of the logging companies who are or destroying our public property.

Every crime imaginable to the human race is described in the Criminal Code with remedies that can and perhaps should be applied for the offence described. Except for the charge of Contempt of Court. Contempt of Court seems to be left solely to the purview of individual judges. This means that the protester who just by appearing in the courtroom under the charge of disobeying an injunction in a logging dispute, has just been stripped of his or her legal right to equality of due process of the law, i.e., to be treated or punished as all other law breakers are treated and punished or declared innocent, as defined by the Criminal Code. 

The logging companies claim the provincial government has given them the right to consider the appointed logging area at Fairy Creek as their private property for the length of their tenure. The public in large part says no, the logging companies are at best renters, bad ones at that. The matter is settled when an individual judge decides to sign an injunction that protects the company and locks out the public and First Nations that are affected. The protesters who use civil disobedience will be arrested and in due course, charged with Contempt of Court. When brought before the court they will stand there, already condemned, because they stand unprotected by the law of the land – The Criminal Code. 

So it is futile to blame the logging companies. Logging companies do what any business does to survive and grow; they take advantage of opportunities such as the current incredible price rise for lumber in the world. Private property is what capitalism is founded on and the logging companies have found a sure-fire way to make public property into their own private property. The tree farm license they have received from the governments makes this bargain. The companies will pay a few cents on the trees cut and then they can do what they like (pretty much) with their newly negotiated private property. The logging companies know very well that they are protected by the Justices of British Columbia. The judges. The ones who give out the injunctions that will tell the public they are trespassing on private property when they seek to preserve public property by civil disobedience.

This knowledge has been gleaned from my own experience of weeks, months, years of dealing with trying to convince BC judges that their use of injunction in in environmental disputes is unjust, unequal, immoral, with disgustingly predicable outcomes that degrades public trust. But I have been thinking there are other ways to consider the problem. The Fairy Creek arrestees are already pinpointing provincial politicians for their part in ignoring the issue. I hope they don’t forget to also look at the provincial police chiefs and the BC Attorney General. These two agencies also have serious responsibility to stop the looting of the last of our forests.  How do these two agencies factor in the unleashing the brooding monsters of court injunctions?  Next time. 

 

 

Does excluding mothers empowers others?

             

As of June 11, 2021, the Canadian government has instructed all of Service Canada’s frontline staff to use “gender-neutral” and “gender-inclusive” language. This includes not using terms such as Mrs. and Mr., and removing reference to the gender of a parent, and only stating parent #1 and parent #2.

At first glance, this seems like a reasonable and even progressive act, as their press release states, “to avoid portraying a perceived bias toward a particular sex or gender”. What could possibly be the problem?

The problem is that the word mother has specific, important, and historical meaning to a lot of people, both those who identify as mothers, and those who identify as having mothers. What happens when this term is removed from any official documents is a perverse form of exclusion – in the name of inclusion.

All kinds of people parent, not just women. But when you remove the ability to use the word mother on official state documents, you are also removing women’s histories and their contemporary roles in doing the bulk of the work required to raise the next generation. Parenting can be done by lots of different people, but it the collective, it is not a gender-neutral activity and never has been in any culture.

Terms and descriptors change all the time, which is a sign of a living language. But unless a specific descriptor is seen as derogatory by those who are called it, others don’t have the right to change or remove it. Doing so is fundamentally a sign of disempowerment.

Language matters and it can be weaponized – both against those who do not identify as male or female as well those who do. Other cultures such as First Nations have managed to create and use a range of words that do not exclude in the name of inclusion, so why can’t we? 

We’ve been able to do this with passports, where people can now identify as Gender X – which doesn’t require getting rid of male or female categories. Let’s use language that celebrates a range of genders and histories, rather than exclusion. There’s room for us all.

The government has since partially backpedaled, stating that “Service Canada agents will politely and respectfully ask Canadians how they want to be greeted” and that “the directive is more about asking Canadians how they want to be addressed — and then following that advice”. Let’s hope they choose to give mothers the same level of respect.