B.C. man in hospital on 24th day of hunger strike against old-growth logging

A British Columbia man says he was briefly hospitalized on the 24th day of a hunger strike to protest old-growth logging but that he plans to go without food until the end of the month.

Sixty-eight-year-old Howard Breen says he spent three hours in a Nanaimo hospital after what he calls a death watch team noted he had blurred vision, loss of balance and back pain around the kidneys.

He says a doctor and his daughter, a cardiac nurse, advised medical treatment late last night and that an ambulance took him to hospital early this morning.

0:56 Save Old Growth protesters stage demonstration on Ironworkers Memorial Bridge Thursday

Breen, a member of the group Save Old Growth, says Forests Minister Katrine Conroy spoke with him and another man now into his 31st day of a hunger strike.

But he says the call on Friday ended without the minister agreeing to a Zoom meeting that would be recorded for the public to access.

Breen says activists will now focus on escalating action against the government and will show up at a Council of Forest Industries conference in Vancouver this week to try and make a so-called citizen’s arrest of Conroy.

The Forests Ministry did not respond to a request for comment from her, but Conroy announced earlier this month that the government will defer more than a million hectares of old-growth forests at risk of permanent loss.