The deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada has been handed a reduced prison sentence of 51 days after a panel of three B.C. appeal judges ruled a previous sentence was too harsh.
Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, was previously sentenced to 60 days imprisonment and 75 hours of community service after she was charged with seven counts of criminal contempt for defying multiple court orders.
Those actions, wrote the three-judge panel in their decision Wednesday, struck “at the heart of the rule of law.”
“In Canada’s democracy, laws and court orders apply equally to everyone, both public bodies and private citizens,” the judges wrote.
“This fundamental principle holds true regardless of one’s belief — no matter how strong — that a particular law, a government policy, or a court ruling is wrong.”
A member of the Da’naxda’xw First Nation on northern Vancouver Island, Davidson became the deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada in 2022.
She is currently running under the Green Party’s banner to represent the Northwest Territories in the April 28 federal election.
But in 2021, she violated a court injunction intended to protect the logging company Teal Cedar’s “lawful logging operations” at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island.
She was among more than a thousand protesters charged in what would become the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.
At one point, Davidson chained herself to a gate, blocking a public roadway. A month later, she entered an area ruled off-limits by the courts on several occasions, and in one case, interfered with machinery with the “desire to send a message,” the ruling says.
On three other occasions in 2021, Davidson entered the area covered by the injunction, twice to deliver food and play a drum with protesters. In several cases, she was found to have violated the conditions of her bail.
Davidson claimed the trial judge had “committed material errors” in giving her a conventional jail term, and asked that she receive a conditional sentence.
Citing from a previous ruling, the panel of appeal judges wrote that Davidson “considers it her duty, as an Indigenous woman and Land Guardian, to protect the integrity of the land and particularly the cedar trees.”
“She said that she was chosen by her Elders and others in her community to become involved in protecting the lands, waters, and trees.”
Davidson did not have a criminal record before the protests. But the sentencing judge found her conduct “endangered herself and others” and that her offences “formed part of organized, large-scale defiance of the injunction” carried out “to obtain publicity for her cause.”
The appeal ruling found the sentencing judge had misapplied a legal principle that stepped up Davidson’s sentence for repeat offences.
“It was the judge’s application of the step-up principle that led to the appellant receiving a longer cumulative term of conventional imprisonment than the one recommended by the Crown,” wrote Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten for the panel.
The appeal judges rejected Davidson’s initial sentencing. Instead of a “linked series of acts within a single endeavour,” her breaches were re-assessed as “separate acts, deliberately committed over a period of eight months.”
“In my view, given these findings and the inherent gravity of criminal contempt, a fit cumulative sentence is the one proposed by the Crown at first instance: 51 days’ conventional imprisonment and 75 hours of community work service, managed and supervised through a probation order,” the judges ruled.
Davidson’s remaining sentence was reduced to 39 days in prison for time served in pre-sentence custody.
Last year, Davidson was released from the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge after six days in jail. The appeals judges asked correctional officials to account for those days in prison.
Davidson’s lawyer Benjamin Isitt said that they have filed paperwork to seek leave to appeal the latest decision before the Supreme Court of Canada.
He expects Davidson will be released from custody with another 31 days to serve under the latest ruling.
“By tomorrow afternoon, she’ll be back on the campaign trail,” said Isitt.
Richard Johnston, professor emeritus of political science at the University of British Columbia, said that given the nature of the violations, the ruling might reinforce Davidson’s appeal as an environmental activist.
“I think that might have been a stronger card to play in another election where the Greens weren’t going down,” Johnston said.
The Green Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
