Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of Red Eye. I'm Jane Williams. Coming up, Lorain Chisholm talks with lawyer David Wu and filmmaker Kristi Morgan about a new class action suit against the RCMP for alleged misconduct at Ferry Creek.
Speaker: The class action lawsuit was filed this month against the RCMP by two media professionals. They're seeking to hold the RCMP accountable for breaching their charter rights and the constitutional rights of hundreds of other individuals at Ferry Creek. Lawyers for the suit say it's believed that of the almost 1 ,200 arrests at Ferry Creek, the site of a protest over protectionable growth for us, most people were released without charge.
Speaker: I'm joined by a lawyer for the class action lawsuit, David Wu of R .V. Finley and film producer, Christy Morgan, who is one of the plaintiffs. Hello, David. Good morning. And hi, Christy. Good morning. Christy, let me start with you. What brought you to Ferry Creek and what were you hoping to carry out there? Yeah, a lot of people I knew had been going for quite some time before I had
Speaker: heard about it and considered going myself. A few months into the protest, they actually put a call out for media professionals because the people who were leading the protest at the time felt there was a lot of illegal happenings around how the RCMP was upholding the injunction. So that's what led me to go there. I took myself and my crew with me and we started documenting everything that we saw.
Speaker: Talk about your experience at Ferry Creek and how the RCMP acted towards you and your, and your crew specifically. Oh, it was not a pleasant experience for the most part. Although we did see, you know, a lot of really lovely people doing really lovely things. There was a lot of, a lot of aggression from the RCMP in particular towards us as media professionals. We were held back in exclusion zones mostly was our issue.
Speaker: I also was, you know, physically assaulted during what's called the Peppersbury incident, which happened on August 21st. It was the date. We ran into a lot of issues there. They're like pretty fleeting.
Speaker: shared experiences that not just myself encountered, almost every person that was acting in some sort of journalistic or media way, along with all the protesters encountered too. So yeah, mostly the exclusion zones, the excessities of force by the RCMP was something that we encountered quite frequently. Now, David, the claim describes a catch and release program by the RCMP. What did that look like?
Speaker: Yeah, so you're right. The claim kind of targets two policies or tactics that the RCMP used in trying to uphold the very great conjunction, one of which is the exclusion zones, which Christie talked about, and the other is the catch and release one.
Speaker: And the catch and release one is effectively if the RSMP we allege were using their arrest powers, not for actual arrests in terms of whether they actually believed that people were either
Speaker: going to be in breach of the injunction or conducting criminal behavior, but as really a means of crowd control and they would arrest people, hold them, and then in many cases release them without charge or in some cases release them, you know,
Speaker: far away from the injunction area, they would drive them out to a different town or in the middle of the woods and release them so they would have a hard time getting back. And sometimes they'd release them in unsafe conditions. So that's really the catch and release policy in a nutshell. That sounds pretty scary to me if I was out doing a legal protest and I ended up being dropped off in the middle of a forest
Speaker: somewhere. There must have been great safety concerns there. Yeah, we've certainly heard from people who were very scared for their safety being dropped off in the middle of nowhere or dropped off with other people they didn't know in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it's certainly a story we've heard from people who've experienced it.
Speaker: The suit claims that the RCMP breached the constitutional rights of participants who were protesting at Ferry Creek. What rights were violated? So the claim is brought on the basis of section two of the charter. And so section two encompasses freedom of expression, which includes freedom of the press and media.
Speaker: Section two also includes freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association. And also section seven of the charter, section seven includes the right to life, liberty, and security of the person. And sections eight and nine of the charter eight, section eight is the right against a reasonable search and seizure. And section nine is the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. So two, seven, eight, and nine are the provisions of the charter that we're relying on.
Speaker: So David, how does this reported behavior by the RCMP overstep its legal authority? Right. So I think it's important to realize that with the exclusion zones, that's already been held by our court to be unlawful.
Speaker: Justice Thompson in a decision has already said the use of exclusion zones was unnecessary and there was no authority for the RCMP to use such a policy. It was overbroad and targeted a lot of people who had every right to be
Speaker: in the area, whether they were media personnel or other law abiding citizens to have access to the area. So the exclusion zone has already been determined to be in excess of RCMP police powers. So I think that's an important point that our claim kind of builds off of.
Speaker: Christy, when you were at Ferry Creek, was it clear what the exclusion zones were or was that something that was a bit of a moving target? The exclusion zones were whatever the police officers wanted to make them that day. There were no regulation of them or no standard practice.
Speaker: I could give you a few examples of how they operated. One day I actually was kept within a square made of sticks and that was the exclusion zone. Another day I was kept back to almost 10 kilometers from the action. So they varied quite significantly. They were all just up to the police officer who was making an exclusion zone at the time.
Speaker: So making it a bit difficult as a filmmaker too. It's extremely difficult, yes, as you can imagine, yeah. David, what is the scope of the lawsuit and who's eligible to join in the class action? Yeah, so in terms of the size of the class, it's probably, we think it's quite large. As you mentioned, there are many hundreds of people who were arrested but not charged. But beyond that,
Speaker: There were a number of people who were never arrested or never formally arrested, people who were simply prevented from going to where they wanted to go or kept in areas or have people who've had their bags searched or who weren't able to drive to where the action wasn't at the walk. So beyond the number of people who were actually arrested, there are a number of other people
Speaker: of law -abiding citizens who would be impacted by these policies. So the class itself we think is quite large. The people who would be eligible for the class would be people who meet our proposed definition, which is basically anyone who had
Speaker: their movement impeded were detained or arrest or had their property searched or seized by RCMPs in connection with the Ferry Creek injunction when they attempted to access or travel into the area or who were arrested but for whom the RCMP did not recommend bringing charges. So basically anyone who were affected by either the exclusion zone
Speaker: policy or the catch and release policy would be part of the class. Christian, I want to ask you a question about just the certainty when you're going into a protest situation, either as a media person or as a protester. Usually you're making decisions about when am I going to, you know, transgress, you know, perhaps an injunction or I'm not going to, I don't want to get arrested. And these are calculations that
Speaker: people make when they're part of a protest, how far they want to go. So I'm just wondering what your reflections are in terms of, sounds like so much uncertainty and lack of clarity around what's happening on the ground. How that affects someone
Speaker: you know, the people that you saw protesting or yourself as a media person. Yeah, of course. I know the law really well, especially when it comes to journalistic practices and media in the country. And I've actually worked in different countries in these situations as well. So I knew
Speaker: Very well, what they were doing was extremely illegal and I operated with that truth and knowing that I was in the right and I had every right to be there and like sort of midway through her reporting and gathering and documenting in Ferry Creek.
Speaker: Honorable Justice Thompson actually went through the proceedings of a court case and deemed that the RCMP were in fact using illegal exclusion zones. And within his report, he had a section that spoke specifically to the exclusion zones. So whenever I was met after that with an exclusion zone, I actually read Justice Thompson's ruling to the RCMPs and asked them if they understood the law that they were trying to uphold.
Speaker: So I fully feel like I was within my rights and within the law. Now, Christy, why is it so important to defend the right to protest and for media to be able to document the actions of people protesting industrial activity like at Ferry Creek? Oh, it's a really hard question to answer. But I mean, for me, I think it's a very fabric that democracy is built on. If we cannot see and document and witness
Speaker: what industry is doing and what our government is doing against our wishes. I don't think we have a democracy. I want to ask both of you what you hope the lawsuit will accomplish. Let me start with you, Christy. For me, I mean, it's twofold. I witnessed a lot of people suffer at Ferry Creek at the hands of the RCMP. A lot of people
Speaker: really suffered. It's the only, it's the only word for it and are left very traumatized. So I hope that through the class action lawsuit, there will be some retribution for them financially. But more importantly to me is to hold the RCMP accountable because unfortunately this isn't the first time we've seen this in this country. It's happening more frequently and I think it's something that really scares me.
Speaker: Yeah, I would echo Christy's thoughts on this point. Obviously, we want people who are affected by these, who've had their fundamental freedoms and fundamental rights infringed on to have adequate compensation. And a lot of people have suffered and have suffered real harm. And so they deserve to be compensated. And overarching all of this is the accountability point to make sure that
Speaker: The RCMP, there's consequences for them when they use policies or tactics that are unconstitutional and unlawful, that there's actual consequences in terms of monetary consequences and declarations from the court as well. So accountability in terms of how the RCMP operates and to hopefully change how they operate in the future is a big component of this case.
Speaker: Well, I want to thank both of you so much for joining me and we'll continue to follow the case. Thank you. Thank you. I've been speaking with David Wu and Christy Morgan. David Wu is a lawyer with R .B. Finley and Christy Morgan is a filmmaker and one of the plaintiffs in a proposed class action suit against the RCMP for their misconduct at Ferry Creek. I'm Lorraine Chisholm.
Speaker: The Red Eye Collective is based in Vancouver. You can check us out at coopradio .org slash redeye.
