Straight Talk

Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward stood before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown and stated, "B.C. is the contempt capital of the common law world".

The feisty lawyer is representing thrice-arrested 78-year-old environmental advocate and great-grandmother Betty Krawczyk in her trial by judge. Along with a number of protesters, Krawczyk was arrested at West Vancouver's pristine Eagleridge Bluffs on May 25, where construction was due to begin on the provincial government's overland four-lane highway.

(The Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs had argued a tunnel was the better option, but B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon rejected this claim, suggesting an overland route would be safer.)

Krawczyk was subsequently arrested again May 31, after she ignored a court injunction ordering protesters to refrain from returning to the area. When Krawczyk was arrested again June 27, after she had erected a tent in the vacant parking lot, she was sent to Maple Ridge-based Alouette Correctional Facility for Women.

She was to remain in custody at the medium-security prison, but was eventually released last month. The trial in Vancouver has taken the entire week and has heard witness submissions from (mostly) West Vancouver Police Department officers.

In July, the Straight visited Krawczyk at the Alouette facility. Toward the end of the interview, Krawczyk noted she was upset with the way "[court] injunctions are used to stifle dissent".

It is a point Cameron Ward made quite forcefully to Brown on September 21. This came after Brown had interrupted Ward during a cross-examination of West Vancouver police constable Philip Grieff. Ward argued his client was victim of what amounted to "officially-induced abuse of process", and that, if convicted of criminal contempt charges (as yet undetermined), she could face a "much more onerous and severe sanction".

Ward was unavailable for questions regarding the issue of arrest-by-injunction, as he immediately whisked Krawczyk away for a briefing. But renowned Vancouver activist Ned Jacobs—also arrested in May at the bluffs and awaiting charges of his own—was also in attendance in spacious Courtroom 20.

He noted that, as if yet, there are no "actual charges that have been laid" against any of the protesters. Jacobs also noted that contempt charges are not covered in the Criminal Code and , as such, offer no legal precedents when it comes to limits to legal liability on the part of the defendant.