by Ned Jacobs

Throughout the 39-day blockade at Eagleridge Bluffs last spring, BC Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon and West Vancouver MLA Joan McIntyre spun it so that the protesters appeared to be a small group of wealthy NIMBYs worried about property values. Even as poll results showed that 80 percent of the people in the district were opposed to the Olympics-related highway diversion, mainstream media bought the lie, and many potential allies were turned off by reverse class prejudice. Twenty-four citizens were arrested and hundreds of thousands of carbon-sequestering trees and shrubs bit the dust. Tragically, they constituted some of the rarest and most biologically diverse ecosystems in Canada.
In February of this year, 500 people attended Standing up for Nature, a benefit concert to raise money towards the costs of appealing the injunction. Two great-grandmothers were notably absent: Harriet Nahanee died of pneumonia soon after her release from Surrey Pre-trial Centre, where BC Supreme Court Madam Justice Brown had incarcerated the frail Pacheedaht Nation Elder for refusing to recognize the court’s authority over unceded land. A petition calling for a public inquiry into her sentence is underway. Betty Krawczyk was also in that hell-hole, starting a 10-month sentence in her quest to stop the use of injunctions that deprive citizens of their rights under the criminal code. She is currently at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge.
The Crown Attorney declined to prosecute the other arrestees, citing insufficient evidence of criminal contempt. The defendants faced a Hobson’s choice: contest civil contempt and be hit with stiff fines, in addition to an excess of $10,000 each in court costs, or settle with Sea to Sky Highway Project’s P3 (public-private partnership) lawyers. They negotiated, partly out of concern that heavy penalties could frighten others from resisting injunctions in the future.
The Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs is not going away, and a portion of the concert proceeds will support new environmental initiatives. We are determined to keep the story of Eagleridge and BC’s broken Olympic promise alive so that our loss will be a turning point for the restoration of justice.

Operation Doing-Time: Sentence Yourself to Community Service! invites citizens to register their estimated hours of service for a wide range of causes at www.eagleridgebluffs.ca/dotime.