The Green Party’s deputy leader, and a prominent leader during the Fairy Creek old-growth logging protests in 2021, has lost a bid to appeal a prison sentence in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, initially received 60 days of jail time, after being convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt last year in relation to the the Fairy Creek protests.
Davidson, who hails from the Da’naxda’xw First Nation and is the deputy leader of the federal Green Party, subsequently saw that sentence reduced in the B.C. Court of Appeal — but she attempted to take that appeal one step further, to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In a short judgment on Thursday, the country’s highest court denied that request, with Davidson now set to serve 31 days in prison for the protests.
“The Green Party of Canada stands in unwavering solidarity with Rainbow Eyes,” the party said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for a system that upholds justice, protects the environment, and honours Indigenous rights.”
Davidson began serving her sentence, which included 18 months of probation and 75 hours of community service, on Wednesday, according to her lawyer Ben Isitt.
“We’re disappointed that the Supreme Court has decided not to hear the appeal,” he told CBC News.
“We think that important issues [were] at stake in terms of sentencing of Indigenous persons and the application of Gladue principles, so the decision is unfortunate.”
Davidson was found to be in breach of an injunction granted to logging company Teal Cedar, obtained after thousands of protesters occupied roads in the company’s logging zone in 2021, in what is regarded as the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada.
Fairy Creek protester condemns ‘colonial system’ before receiving jail sentence
Though hundreds of prosecutions for criminal contempt collapsed as courts found that RCMP did not properly read the injunction to protesters, Davidson was handed a months-long sentence due to repeated violations of the injunction.
Davidson was first arrested in May 2021, after she chained her neck to a gate. She was then told she was in breach of the injunction and instructed to leave by police. When RCMP returned an hour later, she was still chained to the gate and she was arrested.
She later breached her bail conditions by returning to the area for a variety of reasons, according to the sentencing decision posted last year.
In three instances, according to that initial decision, she returned to protest the logging.
Later, in November 2021, she returned to the injunction zone to deliver food, and then returned twice in January 2022 to join a search party for a missing person.
Just before she received her initial sentence last April, Davidson said she believed she was acting in accordance with natural law and her beliefs, an argument used in court as she lobbied for minimal jail time and community service.
“I would do it again, yes,” she told reporters outside the Nanaimo courthouse last April. “There is no price too high to protect our Mother Earth and we know it.
“The message comes from Mother Earth. It comes from forests and the Amazon, Asia, Africa — to stand up for the trees right now, before it’s too late.”
As her appeals worked their way through the courts, Davidson stood as the Green Party candidate for the Northwest Territories — a contest in which she finished a distant fourth to the Liberals’ Rebecca Alty.
