NEW BRUNSWICK — Justice Ernest Drapeau is one of three judges hearing an appeal launched by three timber firms that fear the Wolastoqey will get a toehold on their vast woodlands where they do business. The case before New Brunswick’s Court of Appeal centres around a lower-court ruling in which the judge agreed to remove the big private owners from the claim but left their land in the lawsuit, opening the door, they fear, to future expropriation by the provincial government. …Drapeau wanted to know how a court could direct a provincial government to take away property from private owners, who both sides agree are “innocents” in the claim because they had nothing to do with awarding land grants. …The justice said he couldn’t imagine a court would order what the provincial government should do with its land because it is not allowed to do so per the Crown Lands and Forests Act.