Carrier Lumber Decision in B.C. Appealed
8/30/99
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Title: CARRIER LUMBER Decision Appealed
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 30, 1999
VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, August 30, 1999 (ENS) - The
province of British Columbia has appealed the July 29, B.C. Supreme
Court decision regarding the suspension and cancellation of Carrier
Lumber's forest licence, Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh said Friday.
The province has concluded that an appeal is necessary on both the
issues of law raised in this case and the findings of fact, "including
conclusions reached regarding the characterization of provincial
officials and their conduct in the course of their duties in matters
relating to this case," the Attorney General said.
The case involves events stemming from a major infestation of mountain
pine beetles found 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of Williams Lake in
the mid-1970s. Carrier Lumber was granted a forest licence in 1983 to
log five million cubic metres of beetle-damaged timber over a 10-year
period.
The timber licence area of roughly 359,400 hectares (888,000 acres) is
bounded on the north by the Itcha mountains, on the west by Tweedsmuir
Park, on the southwest by the Coast Mountains and on the east by the
Chilcotin and the Taseko rivers. It is a high altitude semi-arid
climate where the major timber species found is lodgepole pine.
The province maintains that Carrier disputed the posting of security
for the performance of basic silviculture, a requirement of all major
forest licensees since 1987. The company also had to contend with
First Nations peoples who blockaded access to the licensed area. v In
the end, Carrier was prevented, by actions attributable to the
government of B.C. from harvesting over one half of the 5,000,000
cubic metres of wood awarded to them under the Forest Licence A20022.
The final total harvested under the license was 2,447,050 cubic
metres.
The company brought a civil action alleging the province breached its
contract with the company since the late 1980s. The B.C. Supreme Court
ruled that Carrier established the basis for an award of punitive
damages but did not set an amount.
Carrier argued before Mr. Justice W.G. Parrett that the province acted
in bad faith, consciously sacrificing Carrier and its interests to
promote other goals and, secondly, that by a concerted effort the
province suppressed documents and evidence in order to conceal their
actions and the reasons behind them.
The province argued that the plaintiff's attack amounts to a plea for
immunity from the operation of key forestry statutes, regulations and
policies which have regulated the operations of major licensees
harvesting Crown timber in the interior of British Columbia since
1987.
The province said none of its conduct amounted to bad faith; that all
it tried to do was to pursue sometimes conflicting interests by
negotiations aimed at accommodating both Carrier's interests and those
of the First Nations peoples.
On the critical issue of document disclosure, the court found that the
province "wholly failed in their obligation to provide to the
plaintiff proper disclosure of relevant and material documents."
"...there was an active and deliberate effort to suppress documents
and withhold evidence as to the sequence of events," the court ruled.
The ruling concluded that, "there are still documents which have not
been disclosed which bear directly on the way in which key decisions
were made."
The key to an understanding of the ending of Carrier's venture in the
Chilcotin is to be found in the militancy of the First Nations' people
which led to the blockades which prevented Carrier from gaining access
to the timber in the Beef Trail Creek area and then that located in
the Brittany Triangle.
On May 13, 1992, then Premier Michael Harcourt, accompanied by then
Minister of Forests, the newly sworn premier Dan Miller, and then
Minister of Economic Development, Small Business and Trade, David
Zirnhelt who is now Minister of Forests, met with the Tsilhqot'in
Chiefs at the airstrip at 108 Mile.
"The events of this meeting would have enormous repercussions to
Carrier and potentially to the whole Province of British Columbia,"
the Mr. Justice Parrett's ruling states.
During this meeting Premier Harcourt promised the Nemiah people that
there would be no harvesting in their traditional territory without
their consent.
In court, Phillip Halkett, then Deputy Minister of Forests, said, "the
implication of the [Harcourt] statement is that we had just
transferred jurisdiction of Crown land, what we considered Crown
lands, to the Nemiah Valley Indian Band..."
The court found that the province induced Carrier to move into the
Chilcotin to solve problems the defendant [province] was facing in
that area. They had offered 5,000,000 cubic metres of wood knowing
that was the minimum volume necessary to justify economically the
establishment of new milling facilities.
After all Carrier's infrastructures and mills were in place, the
province began withholding cutting permits, eventually suspending and
purporting to cancel their licence, leaving Carrier with a final
harvested volume of 2,447,050 cubic metres, less than half the volume
promised, the court found.
"The Reality is that there was no serious consideration of Carrier's
position or time given them to pursue an alternative," the court
decision reads.
"The conclusion is inescapable that the Ministry and the Government
changed their priorities and their direction. In the course of doing
so they made a conscious choice to sacrifice Carrier to enable
themselves a free hand to deal with the First Nations issues," the
court ruled.
The entire lengthy and complex ruling is online at:
http://www.dbylaw.com/carrier/default.html
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999