Green Party Indigenous affairs critic guilty of contempt of court

Green Party Indigenous affairs critic, Angela Davidson, who also known as Rainbow Eyes, was convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt of court in a Nanaimo courtroom on Jan. 18, 2024 for repeatedly breaking an injunction against blocking logging operations in the area of the Fairy Creek watershed on West Vancouver Island. She is shown here locked to a logging gate on May 18, 2021. Photo: Ada'itsx/Fairy Creek Blockade / Facebook.

The Green Party of Canada’s Indigenous affairs critic Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, was convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt of court on January 18 for her participation in an anti-logging blockade near Fairy Creek on West Vancouver Island in 2021 and 2022.

In his judgment, Chief Justice Hinkson wrote that “Ms. Davidson’s conduct was defiant, repeated and public, and certainly not minimal.”

Davidson locked herself to a logging road gate with a bicycle lock around her neck and one arm inside a pipe where she was chained to another protester within an injunction zone in May 2021.

When she refused to leave, an RCMP officer gave her a written copy of the injunction granted to forestry company Teal Cedar banning the blocking of the road, before arresting her.

A month later, when Davidson climbed on top of a grader singing and drumming, preventing forestry workers from using it as other protesters blocked its path as well as another route. Davidson was read the injunction order and arrested.

Davidson’s lawyer Ben Issit says that Davidson was acting to prevent the forestry workers from injuring other protesters.

“Her position is that the Teal Cedar contractor was driving a bulldozer unsafely, in a way that was threatening the safety of some individuals who gathered near the gate,” he said. “So in order to protect the people near the gate, she got onto the bulldozer, so the operator couldn't threaten the safety of the individuals gathered at the gate.”

Issit says that the crux of the case was if Davidson had what is known as a “guilty mind” when she willfully and recklessly violated the injunction and her bail conditions.

“Our argument is that her intention had nothing to do with that,” he said. “Her intention had to do with abiding by her own laws, and her own obligations as a Kwakwaka’wakw land guardian.”

Davidson is a Kwakwaka’wakw person and a member of the Da’naxda’xw First Nation. She argued that her actions were supported by position as a land guardian in accordance with Kwakwaka’wakw customs and traditions.

In his judgment, Chief Justice Hinkson wrote that “while the evidence demonstrates that Ms. Davidson was invited onto the territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation, nothing before me demonstrates that this invitation gave her some sort of license to pursue the interests she had as a land guardian in her own First Nation. Moreover, I find that Ms. Davidson’s role as a Land Guardian did not entitle her, let alone require her to enter the territory of another First Nation to impose her priorities in such territories.”

In two of the following charges Davidson brought food to the protest camps near Fairy Creek and twice in January 2022 she entered the injunction zone to help search for Kevin Bear Henry who had gone missing in the area on November 27, 2021.

According to Issit, Davidson argued that the search for Henry was a necessity

“We argued that, at most, her conduct was a trivial trifling infraction, and that she shouldn't be convicted on that basis,” he said.

Chief Justice Hinkson wrote that he did not believe Davidson entered the injunction area to search for Henry and instead that “her purpose on those days was to continue her opposition to the old growth logging by Teal Cedar.”

Issit says that while Davidson was convicted, the judge’s ruling may open possible defenses for Indigenous people acting on their own land.

“She's from Kwakwaka’wakw territory, not from Nuu-chah-nulth, where the protests were occurring,” he said. “So there's elements of the written decision that leaves the door open for land defenders, particularly in their own territory, to raise a mens rea defense to contempt allegations.”

A Gladue report is now being prepared for sentencing, which is expected to happen sometime this spring.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Davidson was the Green Party’s deputy leader, she is the party’s former deputy leader. CHLY regrets the error.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.