Charges Dropped for 14 Truckers Involved in Coutts Demonstration
In the winter of 2022, while the Freedom Convoy demonstrations were happening in Ottawa, truckers also blocked the border crossing between Coutts, Alberta and Sweetgrass, Montana. It was a peaceful demonstration lasting 18 consecutive days in response to draconian COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. The protest was consistent with Canada’s Charter of Rights which guarantees freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Then the Coutts protest ended abruptly when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on February 14. The PM’s action was unnecessary and a drastic overreaction to peaceful and lawful protest. In fact, both the RCMP and the truckers at the crossing had embraced each other as a sign of mutual respect the day before. Evidently, that didn’t seem to matter. Nevertheless, the blockade proved successful as it pressured politicians to eliminate the COVID vaccine mandates.
At Coutts, 14 truckers were charged with parking violations which have been recently withdrawn in court, after it was found that they had been charged using a law not applicable to their alleged conduct. According to The Democracy Fund (TDF) lawyer defending them, “the law in question didn’t apply to vehicles in an urban area.”
With this in mind, why did the police lay the charges in the first place? Why did the courts initially accept the charges? Why waste time and money with useless court proceedings? These are questions that require answers if we’re to understand what the police and the courts were doing using inapplicable law against the truckers. After all, both institutions are supposed to use the law responsibly and not apply it in an arbitrary manner as appears to be the case here. In other words, they weaponized the law to use against the truckers.
It’s worth noting that Lawyer Sean Mihalcheon provided cost free legal representation for the exonerated truckers through a TDF crowd funding program called Trucker Law. It provides legal defence for peaceful Freedom Convoy protesters.
To read the Rebel News article written by Tamara Ugolini, click here
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