Juno News - ‘This is not justice’ — member of Coutts 3 responds

00:00:01.000 Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day on Alberta Roundup. She has her say.

00:00:12.000 Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host, Rachel Emanuel.

00:00:15.000 Today, I am joined by one of the Coutts three. Alex Van Herc last week, Wednesday, was found guilty of mischief over $5,000 for his role in the Coutts border blockade.

00:00:26.000 He joins us now. Nice to see you, Alex.

00:00:30.000 Good afternoon. Nice to meet you, Rachel, and happy to be on here with you.

00:00:35.000 So, as I mentioned, this case has been ongoing for a while. We got the results of that.

00:00:40.000 A jury of peers down in a Lethbridge court found you and your two other colleagues guilty for your involvement in the Coutts border blockade.

00:00:47.000 Just wondering, you know, right now, how are you feeling?

00:00:51.000 So, I guess, to some degree, quite shocked, I guess. I mean, to some degree, I guess we knew kind of what was coming.

00:00:59.000 For the fact of what happened. I mean, if you look at the charge itself of the mischief charge, it's pretty broad.

00:01:06.000 So, anybody that they could have picked out of there in that lineup would have been found guilty.

00:01:11.000 So, 20,000 people participated in Coutts blockade and in Coutts protest.

00:01:19.000 So, if they had picked anyone there, looking at how the judge had laid out his charges to the jury, they would have found anyone guilty of that.

00:01:29.000 You know, so, it's pretty tough to fight a mischief charge, which is actually a scary thought.

00:01:36.000 Because that gives them pretty wide opening as they can charge anybody and find them guilty under mischief, under that section 430.

00:01:44.000 So, you and the other gentleman, you now face up to 10 years in prison for this charge.

00:01:50.000 That sentencing hasn't come. It's expected later this summer.

00:01:53.000 Do you know when you guys might receive that sentencing?

00:01:56.000 So, our, what they call pretrial sentencing is in July 22nd.

00:02:02.000 And then, I'm not 100% certain how that works, but I believe that's when they kind of discuss what we can, who we are, what our businesses are, to give the forward, the information to the judge.

00:02:15.000 And then, I believe they're looking at sentencing somewhere in September.

00:02:20.000 And according to our lawyers, yeah, he says it could go anywhere from six months up to 10 years.

00:02:29.000 And yeah, we, the scary part is they want to make an example of us.

00:02:34.000 And there's a lot of things that kind of lead me to thinking that it could be worse than better, is the fact that we had applied, put an application in, in our pretrial application, for the judge to notify the jury of what they call a verdict nullification.

00:02:54.000 And it hasn't been used too often.

00:02:57.000 I believe the last time it was used in Canada was in 1982 with Dr. Morgenthaler.

00:03:03.000 And even though I don't really agree with what the use of it was for there, was he was doing abortions and they found him guilty of murder.

00:03:14.000 But because of what he was doing, they overruled it and found him not guilty.

00:03:19.000 And it dates back actually to, I believe, 1860.

00:03:24.000 It was used in England.

00:03:26.000 A pastor there was given a sermon.

00:03:29.000 And at that time, the king had allowed only five congregants to be under that pastor.

00:03:36.000 And he had like a full house.

00:03:38.000 And they found him guilty of the king's order.

00:03:41.000 But the people, the jury said it was a, it was wrong what he did, but for the righteous reasons, they overruled it.

00:03:50.000 And then the king actually locked up the jurors for three days without food and water and tell that whole city.

00:03:56.000 I'm trying to remember the name of the city.

00:03:58.000 It was, but where they overruled it.

00:04:00.000 And that's where that actually law came into play.

00:04:02.000 So we had hoped that our judge would have allowed that, especially in our case, because we weren't there for ourselves.

00:04:11.000 We weren't there for a group of people.

00:04:14.000 We were there for all Albertans and all Canadians fighting a tyrannical government and tyrannical mandates that were in place to be freed from it.

00:04:26.000 So we were hoping that, you know, he would look at that and give that opportunity, but it didn't happen.

00:04:31.000 So when you actually talk about why you were there, your words echo that of your lawyer, your lawyer, Michael Johnston.

00:04:36.000 He said that you essentially were there out of a, you know, you wanted to protect those with whom you share a similar political ideology.

00:04:44.000 And in a Globe and Mail report, they actually said that your name specifically, quote, rarely showed up in RCMP's notes.

00:04:51.000 So given that, especially that latter note that your name wasn't really found too often in RCMP notes when they were prosecuting this case,

00:04:57.000 do you think that you will receive a lesser sentence than the others that are being prosecuted?

00:05:02.000 Or do you think that you will all receive the same sentence?

00:05:04.000 I'm hoping, I guess, that I would get a lesser sentence, but looking at it as my involvement in there.

00:05:12.000 I mean, I was there, I participated alongside the other ones, and they still found us guilty pretty quickly.

00:05:19.000 The decision when they get the verdict on each one of us was just as fast on all three of us.

00:05:26.000 And a matter of fact, when my guilty verdict came in, my lawyer, Michael Johnston, asked that the jury be pulled,

00:05:34.000 which I've never seen before, but they individually asked every juror what their verdict was, and each one of them was pretty quick to respond guilty.

00:05:44.000 So I'm not sure how to judge whether he's going to look at my involvement in it or just of the fact of the guilty verdict.

00:05:51.000 So as my audience likely knows by now, I had the chance to interview Alberta Premier Daniel Smith last weekend.

00:05:57.000 That exclusive interview aired on Saturday, and I was able to ask her to respond to this guilty verdict.

00:06:02.000 And I asked her whether or not she was surprised.

00:06:04.000 She said that there is never a reason to block critical infrastructure, including political ideology.

00:06:09.000 We're going to play that clip for my audience now.

00:06:11.000 Taking a look at the COOTS 3, I know you said this is separate from my branch of government.

00:06:16.000 The judicial branch is separate, and you don't want to make too many comments on that.

00:06:19.000 I respect that. However, just one question on it.

00:06:21.000 The jury made their decision. It was a guilty verdict on Tuesday night.

00:06:24.000 We obviously are expecting the sentencing could be up to 10 years in prison for those three men.

00:06:28.000 That'll come this summer. They did make their decision rather quickly.

00:06:31.000 Were you surprised by that? They made it about a couple hours.

00:06:34.000 What I would say is that the legislation that we have in place for Critical Infrastructure Act,

00:06:42.000 it doesn't matter what your ideology is or what your cause is or what your political perspective is.

00:06:51.000 You simply cannot block critical infrastructure.

00:06:55.000 So I don't support Extinction Rebellion gluing themselves to the bridges.

00:07:01.000 I don't support days of action that shut down our railway lines.

00:07:06.000 And I don't support inconveniencing neighbors and farmers and those who want to get goods transported by shutting down borders and highways.

00:07:15.000 And I think that this is a caution. There's a way to be able to make your point known.

00:07:20.000 There's a way to be able to advocate, but you can't block critical infrastructure.

00:07:24.000 Alex, what's your response to this?

00:07:27.000 Well, I see it again. I listened to it on Saturday and it is like, I'm appalled.

00:07:33.000 We weren't there for ideology, right? We weren't for certain ideology.

00:07:37.000 We were there fighting the tyrannical government that was imposing illegal mandates, which have been proven now through that Ingram decision.

00:07:46.000 So I'm saying there was no personal gain out of this.

00:07:50.000 I mean, if it was critical infrastructure, if they want to charge us under the Critical Infrastructure Act, there is a law in place for that, that we could have been charged under.

00:07:59.000 But they chose explicitly to use mischief to set a precedence, I believe, for future protesters to never protest again.

00:08:08.000 If they give us a heavy enough sentence and charge us under mischief is going to deter any future protesting from taking place.

00:08:16.000 I mean, it's sad that she's labeling us as a certain group or a certain ideology.

00:08:24.000 We sure as heck weren't there for that.

00:08:26.000 We were there for all Albertans fighting tyranny and illegal mandates that they were imposing on us.

00:08:33.000 So we know that Premier Smith, when she was immediately elected, she said that she had actually initially hoped to grant amnesty or clemency for people charged for breaching COVID-19 restrictions.

00:08:44.000 Later on, you know, at the beginning of the January 2023, she came back and said, actually, you know, I've looked into it.

00:08:51.000 This is something I'm not able to do just the way that our systems are designed here in Canada.

00:08:55.000 I don't have the power to legally grant anyone amnesty.

00:08:58.000 Often when I cover this story, I see people in the comments saying the Premier needs to get those people off.

00:09:03.000 She needs to grant them clemency. 0.90

00:09:04.000 What do you personally think about this?

00:09:06.000 Do you think that there is a way for her to grant you clemency or have you accepted that she doesn't have the power to do that?

00:09:12.000 Well, and there's two sides to it.

00:09:16.000 I understand that she maybe doesn't have the power to, but she does.

00:09:21.000 She has to look at what was happening in our country at the time and the mistakes that the government had made.

00:09:27.000 And I feel that she has to say, you know what, based on what was happening under Jason Kenney's rule, that it was being done illegally, which forced good citizens to have to participate in such a thing to force their hand, I guess, in dropping these mandates.

00:09:46.000 I know our judicial system is separate from our political system.

00:09:50.000 I understand that.

00:09:51.000 And it sets a precedence to, I guess, for further groups or anything to say, well, if they can get away with it, then we can down the road, you'll see all kinds of groups doing these kind of measures and civil disobedience.

00:10:06.000 But I believe this was outside of any group or personal gain.

00:10:11.000 And this was a fight in the tyrannical government, which she agreed with.

00:10:16.000 She said coups needed to happen to stop what was happening in our province and country at that time.

00:10:22.000 And she publicly said that.

00:10:24.000 And now to retract that, saying, you know what, I believe there's a way that she could have, even if she would have said that she couldn't agree with the blocking of it, but she agreed with the stand that we took on it, fighting against the tyranny that was happening.

00:10:39.000 Something else I have to ask you is, you know, some conservatives might make the argument of law and order.

00:10:44.000 I personally wouldn't make that argument myself, but they might say this is just a case of law and order.

00:10:48.000 But even if we were to take that argument for what it is, there's also so many cases of people committing much worse crimes and being let off for much more.

00:10:56.000 And not to even mention the catch and release system that we have going on.

00:11:00.000 So how do you feel about that? Just sort of the what seems to be unfairness of it all of you guys being prosecuted for this.

00:11:06.000 And we have actual violent criminals who are back out on the streets in no time.

00:11:11.000 And you're 100% right, because they had an opportunity to charge us there again under that Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which was implemented, I believe, in 2018, when the train tracks were blocked by the natives in Ontario. 0.99

00:11:27.000 And that's when they, or maybe it was Northern Alberta, I can't remember where it was, but they brought that Infrastructure Act in place for that.

00:11:35.000 And if, if she would have had that opportunity to speak to Mickey Amory, Mickey Amory, our Minister of Justice to say,

00:11:43.000 Hey, you got these charges of mischief, charge them under the Infrastructure Act, because she was well aware of what we were charged with, but she chose to still allow this to go through.

00:11:53.000 So it tells me that she had no intention of trying to get us off of this.

00:11:58.000 When we talk about what the Premier's able to do, we know that she had asked her Justice Minister to look into the charges.

00:12:04.000 about COVID-19, see if there was cases of reasonable prosecution.

00:12:08.000 Later, she received an ethics violation for that. 0.67

00:12:10.000 The ethics commissioner said she should not have had those conversations with her Justice Minister.

00:12:14.000 So even despite that ruling, you still think there's more she could have done?

00:12:19.000 Yes, I do believe there's more that she could have done, maybe not directly outside, but behind the scenes,

00:12:27.000 to, you know, have the Justice Minister look at it and say, Hey, you know what?

00:12:32.000 I'm not allowed to interfere, but you know what?

00:12:35.000 Maybe drop the charges from mischief to critical infrastructure.

00:12:38.000 Give us a fine where it wouldn't have affected anybody and it wouldn't have changed nothing.

00:12:44.000 And nobody would have known the difference, whether she was involved or not, because it would have been a separate lake.

00:12:50.000 But she could have just said, Hey, can you get these charges changed?

00:12:54.000 She has that power and ability to do so. 0.98

00:12:57.000 Alex, you said that you can expect to see that sentencing in September.

00:13:01.000 How are you spending these next few months until we have that amount, what the actual sentencing is going to be?

00:13:07.000 Well, it's going to be tough for me.

00:13:10.000 Like I run not a large scale operation, but we feed about 7,000 head.

00:13:15.000 I have seven kids and nine grandkids, three more on the way.

00:13:19.000 Within the next six, eight weeks here, I'll have three more grandkids.

00:13:23.000 So it depends on the length of the sentencing, but I have a lot to switch over to my kids, you know, to put this weight on them.

00:13:34.000 We run 350 cow-calf pairs.

00:13:37.000 We farm about 2,500 acres.

00:13:41.000 And yeah, to be able to all of a sudden let all that go for something I felt that we stood up for, for all Albertans and all Canadians.

00:13:51.000 And I would like to hope and see that Albertans now are going to stand up and lobby against our premier and ask the premier to somehow do something to stop what's happening because this is not justice.

00:14:05.000 You know, it's how do you word it?

00:14:08.000 I guess legally we were guilty, but morally we weren't.

00:14:12.000 Alex, thank you so much.

00:14:14.000 You're more than welcome.

00:14:15.000 To the rest of our audience, we'll be back on Saturday with our regular programming.

00:14:19.000 Thank you so much for tuning in today.

00:14:21.000 Don't forget to subscribe to Tune North and like this video.

00:14:23.000 I hope that you all have a great week and God bless.

Juno News - April 24, 2024

‘This is not justice’ — member of Coutts 3 responds

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