Trial begins for journalist suing RCMP for arrest at pipeline protest camp near Prince George, B.C.

The high-profile case of an award winning photojournalist who was arrested by the RCMP while covering Indigenous resistance to construction of the Coastal GasLink LNG pipeline in northern B.C. goes to trial starting Monday.

Amber Bracken and news outlet The Narwhal are suing for breach of Charter rights, wrongful arrest and wrongful detention.

Despite identifying herself as a journalist and carrying credentials, the lawsuit alleges Bracken was arrested and held in custody for four days in Nov. 2021. The arrest happened after members of the RCMP's Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) unit raided a small structure known as a "tiny house" erected in defiance of a court-ordered injunction obtained by Coastal GasLink.

Bracken was on assignment for The Narwhal at the time of her arrest. Five anti-pipeline land defenders and a documentary filmmaker were also removed from the tiny house and arrested in the same raid.

Members of the Wet'suwet'en first established the resistance camp at the Coastal GasLink work site about one month earlier in an attempt to halt tunnelling under the Wedzin Kwa, or Morice River.

While five of six Wet'suwet'en bands signed agreements with Coastal GasLink, hereditary chiefs opposed the project, which passes through unceded territory.

Narwhal co-founder and editor-in-chief Carol Linnitt says the trial is about holding police accountable for throwing journalists in jail.

"This case really is about more than just one arrest. It really comes down to protecting the rights of all journalists across the country to do their job, and especially to be able to do it without any fear of police interference," she said in a video posted on social media.

The right of the press to gather and report information and to act as the eyes and ears of the public are guaranteed by the Charter within "reasonable limits."

The lawsuit names as defendants the Attorney General of Canada, employer of the RCMP members, and B.C.'s Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, the body responsible for policing services in the province.

In their response, the defendants say the RCMP knew Bracken was on assignment at the time of her arrest, but that her actions were in breach of the injunction order and went beyond her role as a journalist.

"Ms. Bracken chose to enter into the Tiny House and chose to allow herself to be barricaded inside it. She knew or ought to have known that this was a breach of the Injunction Order and that the pipeline opponents who were occupying the Tiny House intended to deliberately breach the Injunction Order to further their cause," it says.

B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) has been granted intervener status in the case and intends to argue that freedom of the press deserves special considerations during police injunction enforcement action.

"It is critical that police actions in remote locations and against marginalized groups are documented and shown to the public. The role of the media is indispensable in this regard," the BCCLA said on its website.

The trial takes place in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver and is expected to last five weeks.

Coastal GasLink brought civil contempt charges against Bracken and documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano for violating the injunction against blocking construction, but those were later dropped.

Toledano was working on a documentary commissioned by CBC's The Passionate Eye at the time of his arrest. Neither Tolodano or the public broadcaster is involved in the lawsuit.