Three men have been found guilty for their role in the 2022 Coutts border blockade on charges of mischief over $5,000.
Marco Van Huigenbos, Alex Van Herk and George Janzen face up to 10 years in jail. The judge’s sentencing is expected this summer.
The trio were convicted on Tuesday night by a jury of six men and six women in Lethbridge, Alta.
Van Huigenbos said the charges are politically motivated because Coutts “lit the flame that turned into a fire” that resulted in former premier Jason Kenney losing support and resigning. He claimed some members of Kenney’s government sought to exact justice on the Coutts trio for Kenney’s resignation.
“The current administration would not be where they are, would not even be in place if it wasn’t for the Coutts blockade,” he told independent journalist Mocha Bergizen.
The Coutts border protest was a two-week blockade on Highway 4 at Coutts, a village on the Canada-U.S. border.
It emerged alongside the Freedom Convoy, which saw truckers plug up the streets around Parliament Hill in Ottawa for three weeks in January and February of 2022. Protesters there were forcibly removed by police and some organizers had their bank accounts frozen following the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act.
The Crown accused the trio, dubbed the Coutts Three by supporters, of leading protesters to block the border. Lawyers for the accused countered that the men did not organize protesters.
Van Huigenbos’s lawyer, Ryan Durran, said his client was a conduit for information between the RCMP and the protesters.
“He stumbled into a position as a spokesperson. Circumstances conspired so that he became the point of contact with the RCMP,” Durran said in his closing remarks. “That doesn’t make him a leader. You might as well blame the postman because he brings you your bills.”
Michael Johnston told the jury his client, Van Herk, sought to protect those with common political ideology.
Janzen’s lawyer argued his client worked with the police during the protest because he helped move protesters to make way for a trucker who got caught in the protest and needed to leave.
The Crown said the men’s use of “we, our, and us” in Coutts’ videos were evidence of their role in the blockade.
“It was not their highway to close,” the Crown lawyer said. “Making the crime you’re doing less impactful, for a short time, does not mean that you’re not committing the crime.”
The trial is separate from the Coutts four, referring to men charged with conspiracy to commit murder. In February, two of those men pleaded guilty to lesser offences. A trial for the other two is scheduled for May.