B.C. forest company says rule of law must apply to ongoing protests at Fairy Creek

Nov 15, 2021 | 2:15 PM

VANCOUVER — A lawyer for a British Columbia forest company says it wants the court to defend the rule of law at a protest site on southern Vancouver Island where more than 1,100 people have been arrested during ongoing old-growth logging protests.

Lawyer Dean Dalke, representing Teal Cedar Products Ltd., told a B.C. Appeal Court panel that the company has been the victim of an unlawful, highly organized protest campaign to disrupt its legal timber rights in the area.

The company is appealing a decision from a B.C. Supreme Court judge in September that denied the company’s application to extend a court injunction against protest blockades for another year.

However, the injunction remains in place after Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein granted a temporary stay last month in order to allow Teal Cedar to appeal the lower court decision.