(Humanist Movement Press Service) -- by Roberto Verdecchia
Do you know about the Friends of the Lubicon? Do you know about their boycott campaign of Daishowa paper products? Do you know about the court ruling that made the Friends' (and potentially every) consumer boycott illegal?
If you don't, you're not to blame. In what amounts to an unimaginably important story for all Canadians, little more than a peep was heard from the "Free Press" regarding all of the above. The story begins here:
The Friends of the Lubicon began in 1989 in support of the Lubicon Lake Cree of Alberta. Up until 1975, the Lubicon lived off the land, hunting and trapping, self-sufficient. At that point, an all-weather road was built on unceded Lubicon land in order to facilitate oil exploration. Within a five-year period, 400 oil wells were drilled within a 15km radius of the Lubicon village of Little Buffalo. Also within that 5-year period, the Lubicon went from self-sufficiency to 95% welfare dependency. While 8 billion dollars worth of oil and gas resources have been extracted off the Lubicon land, the Lubicon have received not one penny. To this day, the Lubicon do not have running water.
In 1989, the Japanese company Daishowa announced that they were going to begin clear-cutting on the Lubicon's claimed land. Daishowa had received cutting rights to a 29,000 km2 area from the Alberta government -- an area that encompasses almost all of the Lubicon's 10,000 km2 area of unceded traditional territory. (The Lubicon do not have a reserve after 60 years of fighting for one). For the Lubicon, this was the last straw. Already crushed by the brutal transformation of their way of life, with large outbreaks of tuberculosis, an enormous increase in suicides, birth-defects and alcoholism, they felt clear-cutting would spell the end.
It was at this point that the Friends of the Lubicon decided to launch their consumer boycott of Daishowa. Methodically approaching every buyer of Daishowa paper bags, the Friends explained the Lubicon's desperate situation and Daishowa's intention to clear-cut, and asked the company to switch to another supplier. The goal of the campaign was to get Daishowa to make a "clear, unequivocal commitment not to cut or to buy wood cut on unceded Lubicon territory until a reserve settlement had been reached." Over 47 companies switched suppliers, including Roots, KFC and Woolworth. When a company would not switch, the Friends would picket the location and pass out flyers to the consumers, informing them of the issue at hand. After action like this, Pizza Pizza finally dropped Daishowa. Year after year, Daishowa 'post-poned' their clear-cutting until 'the following year'. Finally, five years after the boycott began, Daishowa felt stung enough (losing about $3 million in revenue) to launch a lawsuit against the Friends for the "illegal" boycott, charging them with nuisance, intimidation and conspiracy to injure, among other things.
The Friends, represented pro bono by Clayton Ruby, argued that freedom of expression and other "Charter values" applied to this case -- that this was not simply just a business matter at stake here. In August of 1995, Judge Frances Kiteley handed the ruling to the Friends, stating that the boycott was indeed legal. Daishowa appealed.
In January of 1996, the trial began anew and Daishowa's lawyers argued successfully that this was strictly an economic issue and that the Friends' boycott was interfering with their corporate affairs. In a two-to-one decision, a panel of three judges -- perhaps more sympathetic to the needs of large and powerful multinational corporations -- reversed the previous decision and ruled that the boycott was illegal because it was "causing economic harm" to Daishowa. A request for an appeal by the Friends was then turned down by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
The Friends have always stated that their boycott is in support of the Lubicon and is not a boycott to harm Daishowa. Of course, losing revenue is 'harmful' to Daishowa, but, as the Friends logically point out, "if Daishowa were to give us that clear, unequivocal statement about not clear-cutting, we would immediately stop the boycott. If our intention was to harm Daishowa, then we would continue the boycott no matter what their actions were."
What this amounts to is a decision threatening the very ability of Canadians to exert our influence as consumers. And more than threatening our consumer power, this decision threatens our very right to organize with others, our very right to express and act upon what we feel is wrong! Freedom of Expression is a Right! Freedom of Association is a Right! Freedom of the Press is a Right -- and yet why does no one know what happened, nearly a year ago, in that Ontario courtroom?
In November, the Friends of the Lubicon went to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal. The memorandum of argument states that "the right to conduct a peaceful consumer picket or boycott is fundamental to our notion of participatory democracy." Of course, all of this legal activity is very difficult (not to mention incredibly expensive) for an entirely volunteer-run group to deal with, and Daishowa could destroy the Friends by simply tying them up in court for years on end. But perhaps soon the Supreme Court will grant them leave to appeal. And then a trial will begin anew. And at that point, every one of us should watch and be prepared to defend our Rights. And who knows, maybe there'll even be more than one or two articles written about it?
For information of the Friends of the Lubicon, call Kevin Thomas or Stephen Kenda at (416)763-7500.
December 3, 1996.