Green deputy leader sentenced to jail for Fairy Creek old growth protests

Green Party Deputy Leader Angela Davidson, known also as Rainbow Eyez, speaks as Deputy Leader Luc Joli-Coeur listens, at a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA — The Green Party is decrying a 60-day sentence handed to its deputy leader today for her role in old growth logging protests on Vancouver Island.

Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, was convicted in January of seven counts of criminal contempt for breaching a court injunction and later her bail conditions.

Davidson was first arrested in May 2021 for breaching a court injunction granted to Teal Cedar Products, which had a license to cut timber in the Fairy Creek watershed, including old-growth trees.

She was subsequently arrested six more times, including for returning to the area when she had been ordered not to, and for violating house arrest.

Fairy Creek sits about 120 kilometres west of Victoria on Vancouver Island's south coast.

Davidson will spend 48 days in jail after getting credit for 12 days already served, and must also do 75 hours of community service.

Davidson was named the deputy leader in February after her conviction.

Green Leader Elizabeth May said the party stands “in solidarity with our brave Deputy Leader Rainbow Eyes who is to lose her freedom for the 'crime' of trying to protect the old growth forest the provincial government had said it would protect from logging - and then did nothing.”

May said court injunctions are used to protect corporate profits over public interest.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested at the ongoing protests at Fairy Creek.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2024.