Juno News - Coutts 3 member speaks out after friends sentenced to JAIL, community service

00:00:00.000 Two members of the Coots Three have been sentenced after having been found guilty of mischief over $5,000.

00:00:07.100 On Friday, Marco van Huygenbaas was sentenced to four months in jail,

00:00:12.180 while George Jansen was sentenced to three months, which will be served in the community.

00:00:16.760 The third member of the trio, Alex van Herc, has not yet been sentenced,

00:00:20.500 and he's here today with us to break it all down.

00:00:23.480 I'm Rachel Parker. Welcome to The Rachel Parker Show.

00:00:30.000 Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Rachel Parker Show.

00:00:44.080 I'm your host, Rachel Parker.

00:00:46.060 Joining us today is Alex van Herc, one of the members of the Coots Three,

00:00:49.700 and the only one who has not been sentenced yet.

00:00:52.760 Alex, thank you for being here today.

00:00:54.260 So I want to start right off the hop.

00:00:55.680 I know that the other two, George and Marco, were sentenced on Friday.

00:00:59.360 The judge asked them to sit in the prisoner's box, and as soon as the sentencing was read out,

00:01:05.480 Marco was taken to jail, where he will serve his four-month sentence.

00:01:09.820 I know that you've spoken to him.

00:01:11.620 I saw on Facebook that you had spoken to him since he's been in jail.

00:01:14.280 What did he have to say?

00:01:17.220 So his main thing was, you know, we kind of expected, you know,

00:01:21.140 that there was going to be a jail sentence attached to this, right?

00:01:24.580 I mean, mischief is what it is, and the sentence for it is, a lot of times, is jail.

00:01:30.920 His disappointment mainly is in the difference in sentencing between George and himself.

00:01:37.340 He realizes they were both found to be abating and abetting in the charge,

00:01:44.180 where I was just abetting the activity, I guess, of mischief.

00:01:50.120 So he figured he was going to get, you know, 30 days,

00:01:53.420 and George would get off on conditional sentence.

00:01:57.100 We all always knew George would get off on the conditional sentence.

00:02:00.200 We always felt that.

00:02:02.240 But the big difference of the four months to nothing was definitely, it was hard on him.

00:02:07.680 Like, he didn't expect that.

00:02:08.720 He was kind of prepared for between 30 and 90 days.

00:02:12.380 So when he heard the sentence of 120 days, that one really touched my back.

00:02:17.160 Like, it just, so, but he said, you know what, we, at the end of the day, he has no regrets.

00:02:24.340 He says he did what he did with the knowing of, okay, if we go to Kutz and participate in this,

00:02:31.000 and this goes for everybody that participated in Kutz, knew there could have been a consequence from that.

00:02:35.700 So he says, I guess if I have to bear, be the bearer of that consequence for the big change that he made,

00:02:43.060 he says, I'll do it with my head held by.

00:02:46.400 One of the differences between George and Marco's sentence that the judge had said was that

00:02:51.320 George had showed regret for his actions, and Marco did not,

00:02:55.280 which I think is sort of what you just said, Marco acknowledged that he would maybe have to face jail time,

00:02:59.260 and that he did that, you know, he recognized that someone was going to end up taking responsibility for those actions,

00:03:04.560 and it ended up being him.

00:03:06.480 For yourself, do you feel like at any point during this proceedings,

00:03:10.320 have you expressed regret for your actions, or have you said,

00:03:13.460 no, I did the right thing, and I'm proud that I stood up at Kutz?

00:03:18.140 Well, and as I said, I have no regrets of my actions.

00:03:22.020 Do we have regrets of some inconvenience we caused to our fellow people in Alberta?

00:03:26.700 But there again, I mean, look at the inconvenience COVID had caused to everybody.

00:03:34.160 So a little inconvenience of not being able to cross Kutz border.

00:03:38.580 Was that really detrimental to anybody's health, or anything along that line to what COVID and the mandates were doing?

00:03:45.160 And as I said, I regret, I mean, I had a lot of fellow farmers and stuff and grain traders that weren't able to trade grain,

00:03:53.340 because a lot of them were coming through that Kutz-Sweetgrass border.

00:03:56.340 And they were upset with me, absolutely.

00:03:58.340 But they said, Alex, we understand.

00:04:00.140 So we'll put up with the inconvenience for what the big picture is doing,

00:04:05.040 what the change you guys are asking for.

00:04:06.740 And that's why I said, I have regrets at that part, but not regrets of participating in that blockade.

00:04:13.680 And I feel we made a huge change in Alberta, in Canada, in the world with what happened there.

00:04:20.980 So it's interesting that you say, even speaking with Canadian and Albertan grain farmers,

00:04:25.380 who I'm sure were experiencing financial laws due to the Kutz border blockade,

00:04:30.200 they were initially upset, but it sounds like they were able to say, you know what,

00:04:33.920 we're able to get behind what you're doing.

00:04:36.020 So in the end, did you have support from those farmers,

00:04:38.680 or did they maintain that it was the wrong thing to do?

00:04:41.460 Oh, no, no, no.

00:04:42.420 We definitely had support from the farmers.

00:04:44.360 I mean, I know personally of some farmers that were big brokers that were shipping 10,

00:04:49.700 15 loads a day out of Sweetgrass that 100% donated, supported it,

00:04:54.920 because he knew, he says, you know what, I have some financial loss,

00:04:58.600 but the loss, long-term loss, he said, for my children and family is way bigger than this economic lot.

00:05:05.900 And by the end of the day, he was able to go through other borders,

00:05:09.740 and it cost him a little extra money, you know, to go around to do it.

00:05:14.780 But he said, you know, probably the biggest loss was probably to the cattle feeders

00:05:18.100 that weren't able to ship cattle, because Kutz is one of the only ones in Alberta,

00:05:23.820 I believe it has the CFIA, a veterinarian on staff there,

00:05:28.460 where cattle have to be inspected to go down south.

00:05:31.360 So that impact was definitely bigger on the cattle feeders. 0.88

00:05:35.420 But I know some of the big cattle feeders that were affected by it,

00:05:39.040 later on came up to me and shook my hand,

00:05:41.460 that were absolutely fuming at me, that called me,

00:05:44.380 and were upset when we were in Kutz,

00:05:46.320 and later on got to see the big picture and apologized,

00:05:50.240 and said, Alex, it's the best thing that ever could have happened.

00:05:53.680 Wow.

00:05:54.880 You, yourself, on Friday, your lawyer, your legal counsel,

00:05:58.740 stood up and said that he had been fired,

00:06:00.260 and the court gave you 30 days to sort of get your affairs

00:06:02.880 in order before you receive a sentencing.

00:06:06.000 What went on there?

00:06:07.380 Yeah, so the biggest thing is,

00:06:09.320 so Marco hired a new lawyer, Brendan Miller,

00:06:11.440 and Brendan Miller was really pushing the concept of the law of equality,

00:06:18.540 where he felt that, you know, we were not the principal offenders.

00:06:22.320 There was principal offenders there that the RCMP were aware of

00:06:25.680 and who they were, and they never got charged.

00:06:29.460 So Brendan Miller was trying to bring that, I guess, law into perspective

00:06:35.080 and wanted all the lawyers to be on the same page and say,

00:06:38.420 okay, the law of equality, I think it was Roe versus Adams.

00:06:42.220 It was one of the case law he wanted to use to bring that forward,

00:06:45.400 and I read it all, and I really liked it,

00:06:47.580 and we were aware of this admissions that Brendan Miller

00:06:51.620 was wanting to bring forward already in early December,

00:06:54.720 and I reached out to my lawyer and said,

00:06:56.340 hey, have you looked at Brendan Miller's approach on this?

00:06:59.120 I really like it.

00:07:00.120 I think it's possible that we could go this way,

00:07:03.380 and he didn't want to go that route.

00:07:06.340 He says, you know what, I don't think it's going to work,

00:07:09.060 and I don't think it's going to fly,

00:07:10.180 and I said, well, what have we got to lose at this point?

00:07:12.640 I mean, we know we're guilty.

00:07:15.000 We've been found guilty, but if we can bring this forward

00:07:17.260 and the judge accepts it, then why not?

00:07:20.240 And right up until, I think, the Tuesday before, two days before,

00:07:25.440 I was trying to reach out to convince him.

00:07:27.520 I was showing him the angles of what we wanted to do

00:07:29.900 and what we wanted to use, and he refused.

00:07:32.620 And I said, well, Michael, I'm sorry,

00:07:34.460 but I feel that this approach has some chance of the judge accepting it,

00:07:40.780 so I said, I'll have to find counsel that will.

00:07:43.600 And Brendan Miller knew also that he says,

00:07:45.960 if everybody wasn't on page with this,

00:07:49.260 then it wasn't going to work.

00:07:50.600 So he says, even if we have one that's against it and the other one not,

00:07:55.420 and I thought, well, the only way that I can see that it's going to go against

00:07:58.000 is if I terminate my lawyer.

00:08:01.060 So that's what I ended up doing.

00:08:03.380 So are you still searching for legal counsel,

00:08:05.960 or did you end up hiring Brendan Miller?

00:08:08.420 No, so I cannot hire Brendan Miller.

00:08:10.560 I was hoping to because I felt he did a great job up there on Marco's defense.

00:08:15.520 But there's a conflict of interest.

00:08:17.320 Until Marco is out of jail, he cannot represent me.

00:08:20.840 So he did give me some names of other legal counsel.

00:08:24.080 I've reached out to him.

00:08:25.620 But I'm just, I don't know, it's hard to make a decision now.

00:08:30.400 Basically, like I heard the judge say in the sentencing,

00:08:33.820 and even in mine when he was talking to me at the end,

00:08:36.780 that he wasn't going to go through the whole process

00:08:39.620 of reading all the case law and stuff on my sentence.

00:08:44.620 So he's already made up his mind to some degree.

00:08:47.500 So now it's either I got to look at, okay,

00:08:50.220 do I have a chance of an absolute discharge based on what I was only charged with

00:08:55.480 or what they found?

00:08:56.440 So my culpability involved in the whole sentence was the lowest of all the three.

00:09:02.660 So it's either do I look for 100% discharge and go that route

00:09:07.600 and get legal counsel to help me with that,

00:09:09.560 or I just accept the sentence what the judge has in mind.

00:09:14.520 And then there again, do I give an apology letter?

00:09:17.740 I'll never give an apology of the fact of what took place in Coutts.

00:09:21.600 I could possibly write a letter the same way George did,

00:09:25.100 because George didn't apologize for what happened in Coutts.

00:09:28.400 He apologized to the people in Coutts and Milk River

00:09:31.120 for the inconvenience he caused to the people.

00:09:33.660 So, you know, people right away got upset with George of apologizing.

00:09:37.900 He did not apologize.

00:09:39.200 And the other thing that really bothered me about it is the judge mentioned

00:09:44.040 in his sentence that George was on his way to, what word did he use,

00:09:50.560 that he was rehabilitation.

00:09:53.180 And I was thinking, well, talk about somebody that's being rehabilitated is Marco.

00:09:58.300 If I look at from blocking the border or participating in a blockade

00:10:02.600 to one of the biggest advocates in change in the political world

00:10:06.500 in the last two years to becoming a director

00:10:10.480 on one of the biggest CA boards in Calgary,

00:10:13.000 is that not something that to me that was a huge change?

00:10:16.620 It's showing that he wanted to use the democratic process in future, you know, changes.

00:10:22.300 But he didn't even use that in his sentence.

00:10:24.400 And that's what really disappointed me.

00:10:25.880 You said that you have the least culpability.

00:10:29.820 So are you expecting then an even lesser sentence than George Jansen

00:10:33.440 who received essentially three months of community service?

00:10:37.600 Well, the possibility is there that I get that based on the law,

00:10:42.980 on the statement of facts.

00:10:44.140 I have the statement of facts here from the judge.

00:10:46.240 And reading through that, they have the least amount of evidence on me

00:10:50.180 as to basically the judge said I was a cheerleader in the event.

00:10:53.900 And so, you know, technically he should give me less.

00:10:58.840 But there again, I don't know, you know, he can do whatever he wants, right?

00:11:03.900 So it's a hard decision to make for me now as to what direction to go.

00:11:08.540 Looking at this all, you know, a few years out,

00:11:13.220 obviously we finally have Trudeau's impending incoming resignation.

00:11:17.740 We're going to have a liberal leadership race following that.

00:11:20.080 At some point in the year, we're going to have a federal election.

00:11:23.060 You know, do you feel like any of this stuff has happened

00:11:25.860 in parts of the Coutts blockade and the Freedom Convoy?

00:11:30.400 Or what would you say the lasting impact of the Coutts border blockade has been?

00:11:34.200 So probably the lasting impact is the main number one is the mandates have been lifted.

00:11:39.460 That's number one.

00:11:41.180 Long term, I do believe a lot of credibility was lost in the Liberal Party

00:11:46.320 because of how he handled the trucker convoy and the Coutts blockade.

00:11:51.900 If he would have faced it and faced the people,

00:11:54.700 I think he could have kept his credibility.

00:11:56.660 But after what he did there and not coming out to discuss it with,

00:12:01.900 and that was a large group in Ottawa.

00:12:03.820 And I think from there on, it's been a downward slope for the Liberal Party.

00:12:09.380 For, you know, I know that some of the members of the Coutts,

00:12:12.640 I'm not sure whether this includes yourself, but certainly for Marco,

00:12:15.300 you know, people are looking for support for people who are listening to this show

00:12:19.300 and they want to support you guys.

00:12:20.940 How can they do that?

00:12:21.800 So we have two ways to support.

00:12:24.680 My wife has started an e-transfer thing to put money on his canteen for in jail.

00:12:30.800 So that can be donated through the email address is vanherk09 at gmail.com.

00:12:39.960 So that would be just donations where he can top up his canteen

00:12:43.620 to make sure he has extras, little things, his phone, every phone call costs money.

00:12:49.400 And then as far as legal and family support for while he's in jail,

00:12:55.600 there's a give, send, go, and I'm trying to remember what it's on there.

00:13:00.360 I think it's Marco at something, give, send, go.

00:13:03.040 But there is a give, send, go set up as well that they can contribute to.

00:13:06.780 Okay.

00:13:07.380 So that email address was vanherk09 at gmail.com.

00:13:14.560 And then the give, send, go for Marco van Huygenbos.

00:13:17.220 And just the last thing that I'm kind of wondering about is the lasting impact of this all.

00:13:23.600 You know, some of the men involved here are a bit younger.

00:13:26.580 Like, is there concern of how this is going to affect, impact future jobs?

00:13:31.320 Or is this really a situation where, you know, Albertans,

00:13:34.660 I know you guys are from the south part of the province, southern part of the province,

00:13:38.740 that really people there take care of their own and that them and their families are going to be okay?

00:13:43.360 Yes, definitely.

00:13:44.320 Absolutely. It's going to impact to some degree.

00:13:47.040 And I think that was the other reason why George Johnson got the sentence he got.

00:13:51.660 He's a real estate agent.

00:13:53.080 And if he was to go to jail, he would automatically lose his license.

00:13:59.260 And with that, then all of a sudden his job is out and gone.

00:14:03.640 So he had to definitely look at that and take that consideration.

00:14:07.640 And George having eight children, the judge did look on that and say,

00:14:12.200 hey, here's a man that, you know, is a one-off type thing that happened here.

00:14:17.540 And he knew that if George got sentenced to jail time, that he would automatically lose his license.

00:14:24.160 I know in the political world, like I'm not sure what direction Marco wants to go,

00:14:28.180 but as the advocate he is in politics in the last couple of years,

00:14:33.780 I know, I believe the UCP just ruled in their policy change that anybody with a criminal record can't become a member

00:14:40.920 or something along that line, what I heard anyway in this past week.

00:14:45.400 So that might impact his ability to get involved.

00:14:50.480 But the way I look at it, who wants to be involved in the UCP party right now?

00:14:54.680 As far as I can turn, Danielle Smith got in on the coattails of the freedom movement 1.00

00:14:59.540 and the whole Coutts movement.

00:15:02.740 And I felt that there was nothing ever given back on that aspect.

00:15:08.020 So why would you support somebody that literally was there for her own purposes?

00:15:12.500 Alex, thank you so much.

00:15:15.720 We'll continue to follow the rest of the case and to see kind of where it lands up with you and your sentencing.

00:15:21.160 Thanks, Rachel.

00:15:23.180 All right, everyone.

00:15:23.860 That was Alex Van Herc, one of the members of the Coutts trio.

00:15:28.220 We'll continue to follow his case to see, as I mentioned, where it ends up in about 30 days.

00:15:32.660 We should know what a sentencing is.

00:15:34.520 All right, everyone.

00:15:34.960 That's all we have time for today on The Rachel Parker Show.

00:15:37.820 I'll be back tomorrow with more content.

00:15:39.760 I hope that you guys have a great week.

00:15:42.080 God bless.

00:15:42.500 God bless.

00:15:43.620 God bless.

00:15:43.860 God bless.

00:15:44.520 God bless.

00:15:45.240 And I'll miss you.

00:15:45.880 God bless.

00:15:46.300 God bless.

00:15:47.780 And I'll miss you guys because of y'all.

00:15:48.320 God bless.

00:15:48.840 I'll miss you guys.

00:15:50.300 God bless.

00:15:51.180 Thank you.

00:15:52.300 God bless.

00:15:53.100 God bless.

00:15:53.220 God bless.

00:15:53.680 God bless.

00:15:55.480 God bless.

00:15:56.160 God bless.

00:15:58.300 God bless.

00:16:00.320 God bless.

00:16:01.380 God bless.

00:16:02.100 God bless.

00:16:02.440 God bless.

00:16:03.580 God bless.

Juno News - January 14, 2025

Coutts 3 member speaks out after friends sentenced to JAIL, community service

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