A truck convoy of anti-vaccine mandate demonstrators blocks the highway at the busy U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alta., on Feb. 2.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
A judge in southern Alberta has denied bail for the first of four men charged with conspiring to murder police officers at the Coutts border blockade last month.
Justice Vaughan Hartigan on Wednesday morning ruled that Christopher Lysak must remain in custody. RCMP in February charged Mr. Lysak and three others with conspiracy to commit murder, weapons offences and mischief to property over $5,000. Mr. Lysak is also charged with uttering death threats.
Details of the bail hearing, including reasons for the judge’s decision, cannot be reported because of a routine publication ban on such hearings. Mr. Lysak, 48, appeared by video at the bail hearing Tuesday and for the judge’s decision Wednesday.
RCMP say 13 people charged in Coutts border blockade were organized, highly armed and dangerous
The other men who were charged – Jerry Morin, Chris Carbert, and Anthony Olienick – have separate bail hearings scheduled for this week. Mr. Morin’s hearing was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but adjourned at his lawyer’s request and a return date has not been set. Mr. Morin’s lawyer, Greg Dunn, said he is awaiting further disclosure from the Crown. Bail hearings for the other two accused remain on the docket for Thursday and Friday.
So far, the charges against the four in Alberta are the most serious to stem from countrywide protests over pandemic restrictions. The demonstrations started in late January, sparked by opposition to vaccination requirements for truckers at the U.S-Canada border.
However, the movement morphed into a catch-all of COVID-19 grievances and was sprinkled with conspiracy theories and anti-government rhetoric. The Coutts border blockade started Jan. 29, as an offshoot of the convoy of trucks that took over downtown Ottawa.
In Alberta, RCMP previously said officers raided a mobile home in Coutts, along with two camper trailers on the property, early in the morning of Feb. 14. Police said they seized an arsenal of weapons, ammunition and body armour. In addition to the four facing bail hearings this week, the RCMP also announced charges of mischief and unlawful weapons offences against nine others, who have been released on bail.
Guns, ammunition and other items seized by the RCMP after detentions at the border blockade, in Coutts, Alta., on Feb. 14.Supplied
None of the allegations against any of the individuals have been proven in court.
Some of the tactical vests RCMP seized had badges on them. One had “Diagolon” patch – a white diagonal line across a black rectangle – referencing a fictional breakaway state from Alaska to Florida. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network said Mr. Lysak is one of Jeremy MacKenzie’s associates. Mr. MacKenzie is a former Canadian forces soldier and Afghan war veteran who has become a radical far-right podcaster behind Diagolon.
In Coutts, protesters parked semis, farm equipment and passenger vehicles on Highway 4, blocking traffic about one kilometre away from the border crossing. The protesters in Alberta used the Smugglers Saloon, a roadside tavern adjacent to the southbound lanes, as their home base.
In the evening of Feb. 13, a tractor with a blade attached to the front “came at one of our members,” RCMP Superintendent Roberta McKale said at the time. The officer was in a vehicle at a police checkpoint. The Mountie was able to get out of the way and then a semi-trailer got involved in a co-ordinated effort to “push or ram” a police vehicle, she said.
The occupants of the tractor and semi then ran into an area where protesters had gathered, she said. RCMP have identified the man driving the tractor and were working to locate him, Supt. McKale told reporters.
The raid in Coutts took place before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act.
The larger group of Coutts protesters wound down their demonstration after the arrests because, they argued, they came to make their point peacefully and the charges tainted their message. Some conceded that provisions in the Emergencies Act, such as the chance that bank accounts could be frozen, worried them.
The Coutts protesters dismantled the last of their blockade Feb. 15. A secondary protest, about 14 kilometres north of the original site, at a police checkpoint near Milk River, was also abandoned. Protesters are now demonstrating legally, in a field just outside Milk River.
Police in Ottawa arrested leaders of that protest in the days after the Coutts arrests. By Feb. 21, police in Ottawa said they had arrested 196 people and charged 110 with offences ranging from disobeying a court order to weapons possession and assaulting police.
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