00:13:31.680oh we we heard something there maybe just give it a kick
00:13:43.840does anybody have any suggestions in the comments here because this is one of those interactive
00:13:53.800nights this is one i i forgot to say hello to hello to you guys so daniel is watching tonight
00:13:59.620oh wait there's something there was something did you hear me yes yes like good what happened
00:14:08.420yeah well i just changed settings i bought this uh new microphone four days ago so
00:14:13.480this headset so yeah yeah so what what happened is that your computer your system hadn't picked
00:14:22.520it up yet so you had to switch it to this yeah well it's just yeah it disconnects itself
00:14:30.060oh there's all these options and i thought i had the right one but yeah and you got to go back and
00:14:36.520and pick it again no that's cool man i mean i totally can hear me well you can hear me good
00:14:40.580it's yes awesome yeah yeah it sounds it sounds fun can you hear me is the question
00:14:45.620i sure can okay excellent marco van heugen bus on the show everybody is waiting for the last
00:14:54.300everybody can see marco it's no big deal but you want to know what here you are
00:14:58.480i'm sorry to laugh because i understand that the last week or so of your life has probably
00:15:03.940been anything but a laughing matter so i mean i have two choices i can laugh or i can cry i'm not
00:15:11.700much of a crier uh shadow yeah yeah well you're stuck with my messed up humor and so is everybody
00:15:17.620else that's and that's cool i mean i totally understand it can you give us a snapshot of what
00:15:24.580it was like in in the court during the case for those few days and then i mean the jury came back
00:15:30.420so fast it was three hours and we were all devastated when we got that verdict it was
00:15:35.860crazy i'll imagine that you were pretty upset as well um i mean i was uh oh i was a i was i wasn't
00:15:45.620surprised but uh i was still upset um but it was two and a half weeks of trial a jury trial
00:15:54.060so unlike some of the other prosecutions we've been seeing across the country in relation to the
00:15:58.9002022 protests and demonstrations when you go with a judge proceedings can pause and you can pick up
00:16:06.600where you left off four or five months ago with a jury the jury is convened and due to it being such
00:16:14.440a um well a jury prosecution is is a very sensitive affair and the jury the jurors are to some degree
00:16:23.700uh their life's on hold right this is a this is their duty but they can't go to work they can
00:16:30.380participate in in in in life outside were they sequestered for the entire time
00:16:37.180well they would be sequestered after during the deliberation right yeah just for the deliberation
00:16:43.900so that time they're sequestered but i mean during the deliberations they they get put in a hotel
00:16:48.640They're not allowed to go home until the decision is made. So I thought at the very least, they would have taken the crown up on one night of, you know, hospitality and supper and such. But no, they went to work and three and a half, four hours later, they had their decision.
00:17:07.080from the start to the beginning from the jury selection process throughout prosecutions other
00:17:16.320than significant events that I was pretty vocal on or vocal about on social media the process ran
00:17:24.740in a smooth manner in a transparent manner we had the biggest courtroom in courthouse 320 in
00:17:32.380Lethbridge. So there was, I believe 80 people could be there at any given time. And, um, there
00:17:40.780was, there are days that the courtroom was full, but there was mornings where the weather was bad
00:17:45.760or people are busy where, you know, occupancy was at 60, 70%. So, uh, that was something we
00:17:52.220were thankful for. Um, our defense was phenomenal, but you, you mean the defense that you came up
00:18:01.180with or your defense team in general the defense that we came up with in line with the actual
00:18:09.180um council so the defense the team the team the team was great we had
00:18:15.220the three accused had four lawyers um alex and myself had a lawyer so alex had michael johnson
00:18:25.440I had Ryan Duran, and we had these lawyers for quite some time, so we were comfortable with them.
00:18:48.880What was the issue? Is that something you can talk about?
00:18:52.460Yeah, it would have been, it was a conflict in relation to George's lawyer.
00:18:56.360George's lawyer was one of the lawyers that was down at Coutts during the protest.
00:19:00.740And one of the defense, one of the angles that my, that I was taking with my lawyer would have possibly put his lawyer in a bit of a tight spot or not a tight spot, a conflict.
00:19:14.440and the crown could have used that but the defense was solid our strategy was solid and to prevent
00:19:22.420that strategy from being to the benefit of the crown um and even if the crown the crown had the
00:19:30.840ability to utilize that strategy too we just felt that the risk was too great as as a whole team
00:19:35.860all three defendants and lawyers that this this lawyer had to step back as the actual officer of
00:19:42.020the court uh he was still involved in the background but we brought in two lawyers um
00:19:46.800from the democracy fund alan honor and matt who can't remember his name his assistant or not
00:19:54.120assistant he's a lawyer as well and and they they were up to speed in no time and and um they did a
00:20:01.040phenomenal job as well um is that the guy who gave the speech at the uh chris barber thing at swift
00:20:06.600current no no that's the the the justice center right right i gotta get them and keith keith
00:20:13.880somebody i believe no not keith either way i remember that gentleman um
00:20:18.200the prosecution or the proceedings were pretty straightforward i mean the evidence we'd had the
00:20:27.060evidence the disclosure for some time um there was a lot a significant amount of evidence in
00:20:34.920relation to me and that stems from being the face of the event i was going to say organization but
00:20:41.920that would be wrong because it was organic but there was just a lot on me in relation to that
00:20:47.420role i played as media comms and among other things i felt the crown's case was weak weaker
00:20:56.260than i thought it would have been with the amount of time and the amount of information they had
00:21:00.140But maybe that comes from a place of knowing exactly what happened versus them trying to piece it together.
00:21:08.540So the evidence, when you bring it down to the legal letter, when you bring it down to the guardrails of the law, the evidence was significant, especially for me.
00:21:27.580and george you mean in terms of the fact that you were running the show or you were the liaison
00:21:36.480between police officers and the actual protesters who were there and that puts you in somewhat of
00:21:43.740a leadership role simply because you're communicating the police's wishes back to
00:21:48.220the general group but if that role didn't exist how would the police have ever gotten their message
00:21:55.340through to the people who were there so it sets a terrible precedent marco well and that's that's
00:22:03.280exactly it right that that will be something we can argue in sentencing um now a lot of people
00:22:09.920have said why didn't we have a defense like the crown makes their case right we're perceived
00:22:15.480innocent going into we're innocent up until we're guilty right so we're the crown has to find us
00:22:21.400guilty. It's not like we have to defend ourselves from being guilty. No, no. We have to defend
00:22:27.160ourselves, but I mean, they have to prove our guilt and not us proving our innocence,
00:22:32.540even though it's one and the same to some degree. So many people have asked why, once the Crown
00:22:43.720closes their case, the defense has an opportunity to call witnesses, go on the stand, etc.
00:22:49.580and here's the simple answer to that if myself or others took the stand it would have been
00:23:01.000it would have been a field day for the crown who then gets to cross-examine myself as a witness or
00:23:07.060people we bring forward as a witness and there was nobody there so the crown's evidence was limited
00:23:13.660based on their investigation based on their notes based on what they seen they didn't see everything
00:23:19.520they never heard everything they weren't there they didn't start investigating until day four
00:23:24.240day five of the protest right they thought let's just get everybody gone everybody's angry go home
00:23:29.620guys but after the third fourth day it was like okay these guys aren't going you know now there's
00:23:33.640there's there's a chance they're digging in prosecution yeah okay so that's when they
00:23:39.620started to investigate that's when the investigative team showed up at the cbsa that's when the
00:23:44.420Police liaison really started to started to engage with with protesters.
00:23:51.580And in all fairness to Coots and everybody there and the protests and the protesters, our fight wasn't with the RCMP.
00:24:02.540Our fight was with government. So RCMP mingled with us.
00:24:06.520If there was there was and a lot of people have a bit of a problem with me saying this and that's OK.
00:24:12.640it doesn't change the fact but there was one illegal act to the whole pro to the whole event
00:24:21.920to the complete entirety of the event and that was blocking the highway that was the only illegal act
00:24:28.820some people may say oh you're allowed to block a highway or that's our right well i kind of
00:24:34.540disagree the the legal act the law in this land right or wrong the law of canada and you can
00:24:42.260argue whether canada is even a country and i don't want to go down that road i'm just saying
00:24:46.280that's a whole other show my friend we can talk about that some other exactly the law states
00:24:51.820that you cannot block critical infrastructure so that's the system we're working with
00:24:58.560now that means that it's tough to protest in that manner possibly now i look at coots as a once in
00:25:07.060a lifetime event to some degree now we don't i also don't know what the future brings so i could
00:25:10.920be wrong but at this point it has been and it and it probably will be and i definitely i believe
00:25:16.280the government's looking to keep it that way and that's why they're making an example out of us but
00:25:19.900um and more than just an example people say well why you three well they went from the top to the
00:25:26.100bottom and if there was a fourth person they were looking to convict there'd be a fourth name
00:25:29.720and if there was a fifth there'd be a fifth it came back to the individuals that because i'll
00:25:36.640be very clear there was no anointed no elected no appointed leaders it was organic in its inception
00:25:42.600i showed up there like thousands of others but very quickly there was a need for structure and
00:25:50.620individuals with skill sets and marco are you a natural born i mean like i met you in person
00:25:58.040in swift current about a month ago and i i got a vibe from you that you are kind of a natural
00:26:03.680born leader when there's a void in leadership you step up and it's an instinctual thing has it been
00:26:11.360like that with you for your entire life yes i i don't look for it i stand in the back of the room
00:26:19.840i observe things um i am part of a big family my mom said i could have been an only child
00:26:26.560i was a town counselor for well up until a couple months ago for almost seven years
00:26:32.020um i'm not stupid i'm i'm i i'm intelligent just you know for better or worse probably too smart
00:26:41.000for my own good in some days but i i seen well it's a combination of things cbc did a bit of
00:26:50.340an investigative journalism and they figured out that i was a town counselor so when the news came
00:26:55.560out that fort mcleod town counselor who had already been engaging with the rcmp who had already
00:27:01.300who had already been speaking in certain aspects of the protest
00:27:09.100and calling for calm, but holding that position that we had.
00:27:13.460When CBC identified me as a councillor, which is a position of leadership,
00:27:21.560it was like, to some degree, game over.
00:27:24.620The public outside of the protest looked, a lot of focus was put on me by media
00:27:29.440the RCMP, but also from within the protest. And a lot of people have a lot of opinions. And a lot
00:27:35.580of these people have never been to Coutts. So opinions are like, opinions are great. But I mean,
00:27:41.220the people that were there know what happened. And like I said, there was no appointed anointed
00:27:45.340leaders, but leaders lead. And we could have never imagined what Coutts would have become.
00:27:51.960um my you know one of my co-accused he said this privately often and now i guess to some degree
00:28:01.480it's it doesn't matter if it's public but he said we wouldn't have gotten past day three without
00:28:10.520marco and there's times where i really pushed for certain things and the rcmp was even aware
00:28:21.200that that i pushed to hey guys we got to get this lane open hey we got to get buses through
00:28:25.400etc etc the main the demands of the protest were never lost on me and i supported that the whole
00:28:33.660way but what what i'm saying is that i became even to the protesters somebody who had the ability to
00:28:41.660articulate who had the ability to influence who who could carry the message and i'll just say it
00:28:48.460this way without really specifying details because there's still sentencing ahead but
00:28:52.300I had the perfect combination of brains and brawn to stand the ground and the RCMP testified to this
00:29:00.680this this is evidence before the court when Marco communicated decisions or when we came to decisions
00:29:06.440they were executed he made them happen it wasn't that he had to get approval from this board or
00:29:12.440that board or that group and and let me be very clear on this the decision to leave or to stay
00:29:20.020was always a group decision always that was only argued about or voted on two or three times over
00:29:26.260the course of those 18 days when we talk about to leave or are we talking about the entire group and
00:29:30.620and the entirety of the group absolutely for those of us that weren't there marco i mean i i wasn't
00:29:35.240there how many and i guess it changed at any given moment but how many people were there
00:29:42.200on average daily at coots um people that were in in the eyes of the crown i'll use this terminology
00:29:52.340protesters or principal offenders people who had trucks on the highway who were involved who
00:29:58.200actively involved in the in the protest i think there would have been a hundred but on any given
00:30:03.020time there could be three four hundred in the vicinity especially in the weekends now we never
00:30:08.480had our the weekends were not when we were worried about any kind of um police action or anything
00:30:17.060other than that last weekend when it was triggered but the weekends were busy if they were going to
00:30:21.460move in on us it would have been monday morning at uh four o'clock in the morning it would have
00:30:26.160been most people gone back to work or tuesday so it was the beginning it was also at those times
00:30:30.920where we had to be strategic in our position we had to maintain a footprint on the ground
00:30:37.760enough of a footprint enough pressure that edmonton actually noticed us which we were
00:30:42.440successful in but there was times where we pushed too hard and we didn't have enough of a footprint
00:30:48.260where the rcmp was moving in on us where they were like okay let's move in 100 people let's deal with
00:30:54.800So then we we took a step back and we said, OK, we open up one lane.
00:31:00.600And that was at that time. And it bought us 24 hours, which then brought us from a Wednesday to a Thursday and people started to come back.
00:31:07.680But there did come a point, and it had to do with the political element, where Jason Kenney made a decision on, or an announcement on February the 8th, and we were disgusted with that decision.
00:31:25.700my direct comments were oh that was great five percent now let's let's get the other 95 percent
00:31:33.020of of you know the demands and when i say the demands that sounds like that sounds aggressive
00:31:37.840but well we had an ideological group of health officials and and unelected bureaucrats governing
00:31:44.840our province and the country but what was the announcement he made on february the
00:31:49.720you know we're going to drop this and maybe we'll get to this and you know lifting the
00:31:54.260mandates slowly right and it was like no no it's these are the demand we're not doing this slowly
00:32:01.140this has to happen quickly so there was our position but a lot of us weren't we're there
00:32:08.380were many of us who were involved in politics um not involved i was the only politician but who
00:32:13.220were connected and we're not a bunch of criminals that had absolutely no connection our only
00:32:18.540connection was the underworld no none that was not who we were we were just pissed off albertans
00:32:25.740who had who had enough of this and who had decided that we needed to take the next step and here we
00:32:33.600were so there was that pressure but kenny was also getting pressure from his caucus he was getting
00:32:40.720pressure from a lot of different directions so shortly after the protest or after the blockade
00:32:47.620did end things were the mandates were dropped and that stems from coots and the pressure coots put
00:32:55.100on others because even though between coots and cp10 so cp10 is milk river that's the blockade
00:33:01.940that the rcmp created it unintentionally by preventing people from coming to to coots and
00:33:07.260people say oh the rcmp blocked the highway they're the ones that did it okay let's be realistic the
00:33:13.120only reason the rcmp blocked the highway was to prevent people from coming to coots
00:33:16.560like a lot of i've seen all the arguments on social media i've seen all the all the border
00:33:21.520was never blocked i've seen all the highways never been blocked that's false that you know
00:33:28.160there's eight there we were there 18 days from start to finish of those 18 days um these are
00:33:35.320the facts from the 29th to the first the evening of the first the highway was fully blocked
00:33:41.260out from the 1st to the 7th there was one lane both ways north and south uh the cp10 the milk
00:33:50.000river checkpoint created logistical challenges but i mean it was a checkpoint to make sure that
00:33:54.900only commercial traffic with a bill of lading would be let through because that meant they
00:33:59.720were going to the states they couldn't just let semis through because then these you know anybody
00:34:03.900with a semi was like oh yeah i'm a commercial driver i'm going to the states where's your bill
00:34:08.200Did the Emergencies Act, Marco, have anything to do with what you guys were doing there?
01:01:57.920His glasses fall on the ground and break.
01:02:00.460The bully starts to cry and runs to the teacher to tell what happened.
01:02:04.200The teacher asks who was involved, and out of the group of kids who were involved, she picks only three that receive punishment for their actions.
01:02:13.640The child that was bullied comes up to you and thanks you.
01:02:16.320okay here's the short of that elizabeth told the kids she says dad beat up the bully
01:02:22.760and now he's in trouble and look at it this way we stood up to the bully we stood up the government
01:02:29.260and we were successful we beat up we you know kenny got taken out he's no longer the premier
01:02:35.820um there is change there's still a lot of change needed but that's how we explain it to our kids
01:02:40.980that dad beat up a bully the government and now the government's trying to get him in trouble and
01:02:47.600and and being successful in some way eventually they will come to you know to a place where
01:02:54.060they'll know more and you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say all the evil evil government my kids
01:02:59.140are young they'll they'll get there we'll use the terminology of there are bad people out there
01:03:03.440and they're looking to get dad in trouble because dad did something to help others and it may have
01:03:11.100got him in trouble like we've got a minute left um what are you thinking in terms of a sentence
01:03:17.140has anybody said anything at all have you heard any kind of leaks or is it like up in the air i
01:03:21.960mean the judge probably hasn't even really thought about it yet but it's up in the air i you could
01:03:29.340get up to 10 years by the way i mean this is a penalty that is the max i don't think you're
01:03:34.260getting the max yeah no i don't believe so either i think um and it it'll it'll differentiate between
01:03:40.680the three i do believe that based on the evidence based on you know i was a country mile ahead of
01:03:46.020the other two with just the position and and what the position i was forced to take because of the
01:03:52.500confusion you name it and if you were in court you'd know what that is I think for myself it'll
01:03:59.800be somewhere between six months to two years and I mean that's just a thought I don't know I don't
01:04:06.280know so I think that you guys did something great for the country for the province and without what
01:04:14.180you did I think there would still be you know this goes for the freedom convoy as well I think there
01:04:19.320would still be restrictions and there's the ones they're trying to impose they're trying to bring
01:04:22.900back you know through media and and ridiculous uh sanctioning of free speech i believe they're
01:04:31.220trying to bring a lot of this back and we're going to have to keep acting as you did two years ago
01:04:36.040marco thank you for coming on tonight really appreciate it let's stay in touch and uh if you
01:04:40.540get any news at all about anything feel free to give me a call we can go back and do this again
01:04:44.820absolutely thanks for having me on shadow thank you man have a good night all right there is
01:04:50.380marco van hugen boss convicted of mischief the coots three just last week guys that is it for
01:05:00.640the social media portion of the show tonight i've still got another hour in the extension coming up
01:05:06.760we've got a story let's see here i've got a story about i'm not sure if you knew about this desperate0.95
01:05:11.800Desperate liberals, Mark Gerritsen, deputy house leader, idiot, he's the MP for Kingston0.96
01:05:19.100and the Thousand Islands, and I don't know, this is my former stomping grounds.1.00
01:05:22.880I lived out there for five and a half, six years, and I know you people are smarter than