Victor Lawrence Brice was one of several people stuck in the Royal Bank of Canada branch at Brook’s Landing Shopping Center on April 7, according to a sentencing decision posted on the Canadian Legal Information Institute website. Brice and others organized the demonstration to demand that RBC divest from the Coast GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia, according to a statement at the time from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion. “Today, we risk arrest as we name and shame the ‘faceless’ RBC CEO responsible for the devastating killing that occurred on Wet’suwet’en sovereign lands. Today, we fiercely but peacefully challenge the continued power and persistence of the Canadian colonial paradigm that rejects Wet’suwet’en self-determination and privileges corporate rights,” said Brice, a spokesperson for the group, during the protest. Bryce appeared in court for sentencing in early August after pleading guilty to a charge connected to the bank protest, as well as a protest that blocked the Trans-Canada Highway in Nanaimo on Jan. 27. Crown attorneys asked for a 12-month suspended sentence, while the defense asked for a conditional discharge, the latter of which BC provincial court judge William Jackson granted. “The basis for Mr. Brice’s actions was a very obviously sincere concern about the immediate and long-term effects of climate change and frustration with the lack of political movement despite his efforts to motivate politicians,” Jackson noted. “It is not an issue that a conditional discharge is in Mr. Brice’s best interests. I do not believe that a conditional discharge in this particular set of facts with this particular defendant would undermine the public’s confidence in the administration of the law.” Brice received 12 months probation as part of the discharge, with conditions including keeping the peace, completing 40 hours of community service by January 31, 2023 and not going to the RBC branch he complained about. The waiver also contained an unusual condition, that Brice “must not have any glue, superglue, glue, fixative or resin outside of your residence,” except with the permission of his probation officer. The judge also said he “hasn’t heard” of protesters sticking to a bank door before, “but it would certainly be an effective way of protesting or at least causing disruption to the bank.” While elected chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en council had approved the construction of the Coast GasLink natural gas pipeline through their territory, hereditary chiefs claimed full jurisdiction and staged a blockade last fall that lasted two months and ended with the company receiving an injunction . resulting in dozens of arrests of protesters and journalists.
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