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Embree said staff and inmates at the correctional centre were “great” and she was given a comfortable, forest green cotton sweatsuit to wear during her time there.

But she was also strip searched, and found the cement beds “nasty, criminal” and poor quality of the food shocking, she said.

During Embree’s sentencing, Justice Kenneth Affleck said that while he had increased the fines and the number of hours of community work imposed on protesters over time, it had not had an adequate deterrent effect.

“I am not persuaded that either of the persons before me today are likely to repeat their contempt, but I am concerned that there needs to be a general deterrence,” he said. “It is regrettable that prison sentences must be imposed in the circumstances of these proceedings, but I am satisfied that that must now be the outcome.”

Crown counsel Monte Rattan told the judge that the continuing violation of the injunction at the site had called into question the effectiveness of the court’s order and the rule of law.

He said Embree in particular had been warned that if she didn’t stop blocking the site, she would face a jail term, but she did not stop, so nothing less than a jail term would be appropriate in the circumstances.

During her interview Tuesday, Embree read a brief statement she had prepared for Affleck: “Possibly, when people that are breaking the law are federal party leaders, Order of Canada recipients, presidents of teacher federations, environmental engineers, award-winning entrepreneurs, mothers and grandmothers, the real problem is the law and not the people that are breaking it.”

Embree called for Affleck to “stop punishing the people that are trying to protect the world” and for Rattan to “start looking at these dangerous seniors as wise elders, and stop defending the greedy people that are destroying the world.”

With files from Keith Fraser

neagland@postmedia.com

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