Spurred on by heatwaves and landslides, a climate activist broke the law to demand change. Now he’s paying the price

“Are you nervous?” I asked.

“No,” said Ben Holt. “Not really. I did everything I could. Now it’s just a matter of getting the judge’s opinion.”

Holt had pleaded guilty to four counts of mischief for involvement in four incidents of civil disobedience with an organization called Save Old Growth between April and October 2022. On February 2, Holt was seated in a tweed jacket and brightly printed tie at the BC Province Courthouse in Vancouver to hear Judge Gregory Rideout’s verdict.

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His decision was sobering: 60 days conditional prison sentence (house arrest) and six months probation. Holt, a 52-year-old football dad from North Vancouver and an IT specialist by training, could work from home. But he has a criminal record now.

Holt’s civil disobedience had already cost him dearly. And in his lawsuit, Holt emphasized his promise to give it up. “I hadn’t fully considered the impact of my actions on her (his family).”

Holt was arrested on October 20, 2022 and spent six days in custody for attempting to paint a sign on the Lion’s Gate Bridge before bail was granted. “My incarceration has really scared my children, especially my daughter.”

He told the judge that his wife was a patient and supportive partner. “But she has limits. I put her through one of the worst weeks of her life and put our relationship on the line,” he said.

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“I can either move on with civil disobedience or move on with my marriage. I am passionate about choosing my marriage.”

The ongoing court hearings related to the charges also created problems for Holt at work. To appear in court for the first two counts, he said, “I went back and forth between the North Vancouver and Vancouver courts, often on the same day, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon.” It was difficult to do his job , and finally Holt told his employer what was going on.

It was then that he learned that his employer had received emails from someone who said Holt should be fired. His boss supported him and told him he was welcome to stay. But Holt said he didn’t want his employer to suffer because of him and resigned. For a time he worked for Save Old Growth as an organizer for a fee of $2,000. However, it was not a long-term solution and he is now looking for new jobs in his field.

Old growth activist Ben Holt recently pleaded guilty to mischief and vowed to renounce his civil disobedience. “I can either move on with civil disobedience or move on with my marriage. I am passionate about choosing my marriage.”

Until he joined the Save Old Growth protests last summer, Holt had always been law-abiding. For decades deeply concerned about the climate crisis, he signed petitions, joined demonstrations and spoke to politicians. As of 2015, he ran in four elections for the Green Party. Holt threw himself into this effort, spending hundreds of hours knocking on doors and tending phone banks. Then he was convinced they were pointless. In 2021, BC experienced the worst effects of climate change it had ever seen – searing heat and flooding of biblical proportions. Holt blamed our governments for not reducing carbon emissions.

For Holt, climate change is visceral and immediate. In his lawsuit in court, he wrote about a childhood friend who was forced to leave her home in Kamloops during the 2021 heat dome. He recalled a friend’s father being caught between two mudslides on the Lougheed Highway and rescued by helicopter during the November floods. He remembered a neighbor who had started a composting business and suddenly had to dispose of hundreds of pigs that had drowned in the raging waters. “The effects of climate change felt very, very close, very real, and very scary,” Holt wrote.

He started looking for more ways to be heard. Holt was impressed by Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard professor, who showed that a small group of people can bring about lasting change fairly quickly through civil disobedience. Holt joined Save Old Growth, a group that promised to block highways until the provincial government banned logging. He called her request a “symbolic request”.

“It was similar to Gandhi,” he said. “His first request was that the Indians should harvest their own salt. He managed to translate that into Indian self-government.” Holt wanted to preserve our old trees and then take action against climate change.

Three of the incidents of mischief involved blocking traffic. The fourth was an attempt to paint “Save Old Growth” on the deck of the Lion’s Gate Bridge with four others. Crown prosecutor Ellen Leno had asked the judge to sentence Holt to 35 days in prison with 180 days probation. She said only prison could stop him from breaking the law again. Holt’s attorney, Benjamin Isitt, pleaded parole, a year’s probation and a 60-day curfew, a sentence that would have given him no criminal record. Isitt noted that Holt had no charges, had pleaded guilty, accepted responsibility for his behavior, and was motivated by a desire to stop climate change.

In explaining his decision, Judge Rideout mentioned the character references he received and described Holt as kind, honest, and hardworking. Despite this, he disapproved of Holt’s leadership involvement in Save Old Growth. “He wasn’t just a humble member drawn into the movement. His role greatly increases his moral guilt.”

Rideout also disapproved of the fact that after appearing in court on the first charge, Holt took part in another blockade. “He re-offended while aware of the outstanding charges.”

Rideout said he found Holt’s rule of law thinking “worrying”. Holt had written: “The protection of its citizens is the primary purpose of a state, and failure to do so fails to fulfill the social contract and undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law. Protests like my own, aimed at bringing government back into the social contract and protecting citizens, actually reinforce the rule of law.”

Rideout disagreed. “His belief that his actions in conducting the unlawful protests do indeed reinforce the rule of law clearly demonstrates a lack of genuine acceptance that his behavior has no legal justification.”

Kimberley Brownlee, Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Political and Social Philosophy at the University of BC, wrote The civil disobedience case. When I spoke to her about Holt, she referred me to a 2019 Washington State Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of activists who break the law to defend themselves against “the inaction of governments protested to address the climate change crisis in a meaningful way”. So far, the courts in Canada have not followed suit.

Holt is philosophical about his fate. “I tried my best,” he wrote. “That has to be enough.” He remains committed to his cause, but will only use legal means to advance it in the future.

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