The B.C. Prosecution Service is going ahead with prosecuting 15 protesters for criminal contempt for allegedly defying an injunction passed in 2019 that protects the construction of a liquefied natural gas pipeline in northern B.C.
In total, 27 people were arrested over a period of six days between September 2021 and November 2021, two of whom the Crown decided not to charge due to evidentiary reasons.
The pipeline has the support of 20 elected First Nation governments along the route, including the elected governments of the Wet’suwet’en Nation and Haisla Nation. But it’s opposed by the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and environmental activists, whose protests against the pipeline spread to other parts of the country in early 2020, in many cases with protesters setting up blockades on railroads.
Church had asked prosecutors twice before to consider pressing criminal contempt charges against protesters accused of defying the injunction she issued in 2019 that protects the access to the pipeline worksite, reported CBC.
The Crown declined to say exactly why in both previous cases, when they decided that prosecution was not in the public interest.
The decision to prosecute this time around was made after Crown counsel applied “both the evidentiary and the public interest tests” found in their policies for charge assessment relating to civil disobedience, Shaw told the judge.