Protester takes issue to city hall
Jacob Fillmore is a happy camper despite frigid overnight temperatures this week and a significant snowfall forecast into Friday morning.
“Just protecting what I love,” said the 25-year-old Haligonian as he emerged Thursday from his small twoperson tent wearing a blanket, a light winter jacket, a colourful scarf, warm gloves and headgear.
What Fillmore loves is nature, particularly trees.
“I think people need trees to be able to breathe,” Fillmore said, sporting signs that read Stop Ecocide and Nova Scotia Needs Forestry Reform by the temporary shelter he has been living in since Monday afternoon in front of Halifax City Hall.
“I have always been a big fan of spending time in nature, that's really something that I care about and that I think is important.”
Fillmore said he's “protesting a lack of action on environmental issues such as climate change and species extinction by the provincial government.”
He said the government seems “happy to ignore” the voices of the citizens it represents.
“There is a (stop clearcutting) petition online currently with 29,500 signatures that is being ignored and the Nova Scotia legislature hasn't met since March when COVID began so I don't really see them listening to me,” Fillmore said of his city hall location.
“Being in front of city hall is a good spot to get attention and to put pressure on the government in some form.”
Before his move to city hall, Fillmore spent two weeks in moose country, adding his presence to the Extinction Rebellion-led blockades of access roads to Westfor logging operations in Digby County.
Digby RCMP arrested nine protesters at the site on Langford Road in New France on Wednesday, enforcing a court-ordered injunction against demonstrations impeding a logging project, the RCMP said.
The Nova Scotia Supreme Court issued the injunction last Friday and the RCMP said their members met daily with the demonstrators, who had
set up the first of two blockades to Westfor logging access roads on Oct. 21.
The RCMP said that when it was determined the injunction terms would not be met voluntarily, they arrested and took four men and five women who were in their 30s to their 70s into custody peacefully for contempt of the court order.
They have been released and will appear in Digby provincial court in the new year.
“I was really disappointed to hear that there was an injunction served against them and there were some people there who were arrested,” Fillmore said. “I guess it was to be expected from the provincial government.”
Nina Newington, a member of Extinction Rebellion and one of the Digby County encampment organizers said “Westfor has asserted the right our provincial government has given it to destroy the habitat of an endangered species in what should be a buffer zone between two wilderness areas.”
"Let's not pretend that what is happening is acceptable,” Newington said.
Extinction Rebellion has continually demanded an immediate moratorium on all proposed and current logging on Crown lands from Fourth Lake south to the Napier River in Digby County, a moratorium that it says should remain intact until ecologically based landscape use planning for the area has been conducted by independent ecologists and biologists, as recommended in the 2018 Lahey forestry report.
Citing government inaction regarding several endangered species, including the mainland moose, nature organizations took Lands and Forestry to court last year, arguing that the minister had contravened the Endangered Species Act.
Justice Christa M. Brothers agreed with the complainants, citing “a suite of failures of government” in her written decision in late May.
The judge agreed the minister had failed to implement the Endangered Species Act as it pertains to six representative species that included the mainland moose.
Extinction Rebellion requested a meeting with Derek Mombourquette, the Lands and Forestry minister, on Nov. 11 to discuss its demands and later staged a sit-in at the minister's office in downtown Halifax.
"Citizens requesting a meeting with the minister ... were arrested in Halifax, and now on Crown land in Digby County," Newington said. "It is past time for our government to stop evading its responsibilities to wildlife and nature, as well as to future generations."
The minister has not replied to the group.
Meanwhile, Fillmore hangs out at Grand Parade in front of city hall for almost the entire day and night, taking a break to go to Tim Hortons to use the bathroom.
He said the reaction and interaction of supporters and people passing by has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and he has been gifted “all sorts of stuff,” including hot coffee, food, hand-warmers, blankets, sleeping bag and a sleeping pad.
“It's pretty cozy in there,” he said of the tent that he admits is not really designed for winter camping.
Fillmore says he intends to stay in front of city hall “until the government takes some action about some of the issues that I've mentioned.
“I'm not holding my breath but I believe that together we can all put enough pressure on the government to make a difference. They can only ignore us for so long before something has to change.
A spokesman with Halifax Regional Police said the force is aware of Fillmore's presence at Grand Parade but police have not been called to do anything.
Fillmore said he feels safe in his lodging, passes the time checking out environmental issues on his cellphone, and is buoyed by the support of family, friends and environmentally aware people from around the province and beyond.