Announcer: A small lobby group, the Friends of the Lubicon, will find out today if it can continue to urge people to boycott paper products made by a Japan-based company called Daishowa. The company has asked an Ontario court for a permanent injunction to end a boycott it says has cost $14 million in revenues. The decision will be released today. Sandra Bartlett reports.
Sandra Bartlett: Friends of the Lubicon started the boycott to support the land claim fight of the Lubicon Indian band in northern Alberta. Kevin Thomas is with the lobby group.
Kevin Thomas: The Lubicon people have a right to have their land rights decided upon before any kind of clear-cutting activity is done on their land.
Bartlett: Daishowa was just the latest company to be given rights to the enormously abundant natural resources on the disputed land. But for the Lubicon people, it was the last straw. And Friends of the Lubicon saw a paper company as the perfect target for a boycott. It managed to convince Pizza Pizza, Country Style Donuts, and Club Monaco amongst others to switch to another paper supplier. Daishowa stopped logging. But it took the group to court. In the December court case, Daishowa asked for a permanent injunction forbidding the lobby group from handing out pamphlets or talking to its customers about the boycott. This morning, the court's decision will be released, and Thomas says if it goes against the boycott, it's a loss for everyone in Canada who wants to launch a consumer protest.
Thomas: If you don't have the money to take out ads in the Globe and Mail or buy TV ads, how do you actually reach the people buying the product in question?
Bartlett: No matter which way the decision goes, the case is not likely to be settled today. Both sides expect and appeal, right up to the Supreme Court of Canada. Sandra Bartlett, CBC News, Toronto.