Protester fined $15K for breaking Lemay Forest court injunction

A woman who tried to stop developers from cutting down a St. Norbert forest has been fined $15,000.

A woman protesting work to remove trees from Lemay Forest has been fined $15,000 for breaching a court injunction.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Sarah Inness gave the judgment Monday, saying Louise May was impeding the landowners’ access to the forest on Jan. 8.

“In my decision, I found Ms. May did not act in good faith in taking reasonable steps to comply. Her actions displayed a deliberate and intentional breach of the court order. She did so to gain public attention and generate support for the cause she was advancing,” Inness said while reading her decision.

The original injunction was granted in late December and then extended on Jan. 6. Two days later, protesters, including May, blocked an entrance to the forest, not allowing construction workers with Tochal Development Group to enter.

Tochal had wanted to build an assisted-living facility on the site. That plan had been defeated by the city.

After a continued back and forth between protesters and Tochal, Premier Wab Kinew shared in April that the government was planning to expropriate the land and turn Lemay Forest into a provincial park.

Speaking with CTV News Winnipeg on Tuesday, May—who is part of the Coalition to Save Lemay Forest and the owner of Aurora Farm—said the fine is “heavy-handed.”

“It’s just not right, and that I should be fined for stopping it and getting the forces aligned to do the right thing is completely unfair,” said May.

While her and others’ actions did eventually lead to the province announcing expropriation of the forest, Inness said in her decision that it doesn’t change May’s actions of breaching a court order.

She also mentioned this fine should send a strong message to May and others about taking the proper legal steps instead of going against an injunction.

“It’s easy to say in hindsight that we could have done things differently, but that was a very fast-moving situation and as a community, it’s harder to get people together to get legal advice and to act on legal advice. So, I did what I did to save the forest, and I’m proud of it.”

May did note that if she had more time, she would have taken a different course of action.

May has until this time next year to pay the $15,000, and said work is underway to help raise money to cover the costs.

While she doesn’t agree with the punishment, May said everyone who fought to save the forest did the right thing.

“We can be proud of ourselves. It doesn’t matter what the court says or what anyone else says. We know what we’ve done, and we did good.”