What if Morality Instead of Legality Had Been the Case for the Coutts Three?
Would the jury's verdict had been different?
There are many who supported the Freedom Convoy and its sister protests like the Coutts Border blockade that are still shocked over the guilty verdict rendered against the men now known as the Coutts Three. Even more so given that the men, Marco Van Huigenbos, Alex Van Herk and George Janzen, on being found guilty of mischief over $5000 could very well be doing some jail time for protesting against draconian government imposed COVID restrictions and mandates. Yet, the Crown prosecutor, Stephen Johnson, made it clear that the trial wasn’t about those COVID restrictions or mandates. It was that about the fact that these men broke the law when they took part in a protest that blocked a highway at a major border crossing for two weeks. And the men, based on their public responses to the verdict, seem to accept their fate, but at the same time remain steadfast in their belief that taking part in that protest was a moral imperative to end what they viewed as government tyranny.
Alex Van Herk, George Janzen and Marco Van Huisgenbos.
They saw how too many had already suffered and would continue to suffer if the governments were allowed to continue imposing restriction after restriction, and lock down after lock down. If they were allowed to continue demanding that people adhere to such unconstitutional and frankly, asinine edicts as vaccine passports, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates. And to such socially destructive things as school closures, church closures, gym closures, and business closures. And let's not forget cancelling holidays like Christmas or major life events like high school graduations, or restricting the number of people allowed to attend funerals and weddings. The men saw it as a moral imperative to make it stop.
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Therein lies the conundrum – legal versus moral imperatives. Clashes between these two solitudes have been with us since time immemorial. Mahatma Gandhi used nonviolent resistance that often challenged the law of the land to gain India’s independence from British rule. Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of the Gulag Archipelago was arrested for criticizing Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, and spent eight years in prisons and labour camps and three more in enforced exile. William Wallace – Braveheart – considered a Scottish hero, resisted and fought against what he saw as unjust British laws imposed on his people under British rule and paid for that with his life.
Jesus himself, challenged both Roman and Jewish law and was crucified for it. These are rather imposing examples of legality versus morality being at odds. Yet the people who stood at Coutts and those that travelled to Ottawa in the Freedom Convoy were just more humble examples of the same principle – morality challenging legality.
So what is my point? It is that perhaps the trial should have been more about COVID. Perhaps reason the Crown was so adamant that it shouldn’t be might have been because if the jury was reminded of the kind of hell governments put their citizens through over COVID, the verdict might have been different. Perhaps it would have been clearer to the jurors why these men, along with thousands of others, who had been pushed to their breaking point, were at the Coutts border crossing in the dead of winter for over two weeks. The jury might have been able to see this was a case where moral principles might supersede legal ones. One only has to take a step back and recall the insanity of what I would like to term the COVID era to understand this.
It really is almost surreal when you think about it and maybe if the members of the jury had been allowed to take a trip down this disquieting memory lane of growing government authoritarianism under the guise of protecting public health they might have come to a different conclusions. If they were reminded of how governments fear-mongered, aided and abetted by the mainstream media to ostensibly scare people into obeying public health measures that made no sense and did little good. How about the reckless overzealousness of those tasked with enforcing the restrictions, which they treated like laws, rather than mandates? People were arrested or harassed for any little infraction – ministers were jailed for holding church services.
There were those the stay-at-home orders, a kind of house arrest, where people were told to only go out for essentials. Quebec enforced Nazi-style curfews, people couldn’t be out past 10 pm. Ontario thought about doing that too, but somehow a hint of sanity prevailed and decided against it. New Brunswick wouldn’t allow people from outside the province to enter without proof of vaccination. In Alberta, like many other provinces, all outdoor social gatherings were reduced to no more than five people, and indoor gatherings were completely prohibited, weddings could only have ten guests and receptions were prohibited. Restaurants were forced to close and rely on take out and delivery services to keep them afloat. Many, particularly the owner-operated ones, went out of business.
If the jury could reflect on all of that perhaps people closing a highway for a few weeks would have been viewed as an act of desperation rather than a illegal one. Because it was the only act, it would seem, that got the attention of governments that seemed to have tunnel vision, locked on one thing — the relentless and impossible pursuit of trying to extinguish a virus that had already become endemic.
Perhaps they needed to be reminded of the damage caused by just the first set of lockdowns during the first wave of the pandemic. Already three out of ten people were reporting symptoms of anxiety disorders or depressive disorders. One quarter were experiencing symptoms of trauma or stress-related disorders such as PTSD and thirteen percent reported increased substance abuse to cope with the stress and angst caused by lockdowns. For young people aged 18 to 24, the impact was worse. One quarter of them had seriously considered suicide, and anxiety disorders tripled from eight percent to 26 percent, while depressive disorders quadrupled from six to 24 percent. We all know now, of the very sharp increase in opioid overdoses during the lockdowns.
As well, deaths in the elderly due to Alzheimers and other forms of dementia also increased, but not because people were dying of the virus, but from the very isolation strategies that were supposed to protect them from it. People were literally dying of loneliness. And people were dying alone, because COVID restrictions in hospitals and nursing homes didn’t allow families to be with their loved ones in their final hours. This was just after the first set of lockdowns that occurred over where the holiday celebrations for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter were also essentially cancelled. People had not yet endured, nor could they imagine, what they would face over the next two years!
By the fall of 2021 governments began telling people that while they could go ahead and celebrate Thanksgiving but they must limit how many guests they could have in their homes. Now that vaccines were available they were also told that if a relative hadn’t been vaccinated they should be taken off of the invite list for the family feast!. By the winter of 2021, despite the fact the vast majority of people had been persuaded or coerced into getting vaccinated the fear-mongering continued. We were warned that a new variant could emerge that could drastically change the ‘outlook’.
And despite being told by our governments that the vaccine was the magic bullet, mask mandates had not been lifted nor were other restrictions. Additionally people now required vaccine ‘passports’ to enter restaurants, hospitals, clinics, theatres, and the like, when they were open, because lockdowns continued. Doctors appointments were still over the phone, unless it was something life-threatening. Diagnostic testing and screenings for cancer were postponed by hospitals and clinics. How many people went with undiagnosed cancers or other serious diseases due to such short-sighted policies? How many people died? And people did die, but not just because of this, but because again, of a fervid adherence to the COVIDian regimen.
In Nova Scotia, nineteen year old Kai Matthews died of undiagnosed meningitis, because paramedics and hospital staff were so focused on adhering to COVID protocols that they refused him entry to hospital until a COVID test had been completed. Other restrictions prevented his parents from entering the hospital with him when he was finally admitted. The family was interviewed by journalist Trish Wood on her podcast Trish Wood is Critical. It is a heartbreaking and tragic recounting of the death of a young man that didn’t have to happen.
Then there was the unnecessary death of 43 year old Stephanie Warriner who died at the Toronto General Hospital in May of 2020, during an altercation with security guards because she had removed her mask. Warriner, a mother of five, was at the hospital because she was having respiratory issues due to her COPD. She had left her room to get a sandwich at the cafeteria. On her way there she experienced shortness of breath, and took a seat, in an empty hallway, and pulled her mask down below her chin to catch her breath. It was then that she was confronted by security guards for not wearing a mask and was physically assaulted by them. During the encounter she lost consciousness and never recovered. She died sixteen days later. You can watch the video of the encounter here, but be warned it is pretty disturbing.
The guards were originally charged with manslaughter, however all the charges were dropped because according to the presiding judge there wasn’t enough evidence to convict them.
If you want to read the whole story of how this woman wound up dead, I wrote about it on my substack.
These are examples of some of the dire and deadly results of people blindly following COVID restrictions. But get to the heart of this COVID craziness, perhaps the jury should also have been shown a few more videos of the insanity that went on during the pandemic that was fully endorsed by governments and public health officials.
This video of a young man being manhandled by security guards at a Costco for not wearing a mask.
How about this video, of police this time, arresting a man in Calgary for the ‘crime of skating outside on a pond!
What about Adamson’s BBQ in Toronto where its owner Adam Skelly was arrested by Toronto police, but not before they charged his place of business on horseback. His restaurant was closed by the city, boarded up. Why? Because he was serving customers food from his restaurant outside. This report from Rebel News summarizes this piece of COVID insanity, pointing out that while Adamson was arrested for serving food, the Costco, across the road, which had its own food services restaurant was open for business.
Skelly ultimately closed all three of his restaurant locations, because he could no longer fight the vaccine mandates and other COVID restrictions due to his bail conditions.
Then of course there was the federal quarantine program introduced by the Trudeau government where travellers coming back from international travel were forced to quarantine in hotels for as long as 14 days, at their own expense, and not allowed to leave their rooms. Or they were ordered to stay in their homes for for the same amount of time. To ensure people adhered to this form of house arrest police would either phone their homes or actually come to their homes to ensure they had not violated the quarantine orders.
Then in addition to all this lunacy, the Trudeau government began imposing vaccine mandates, first on all federal employees. This included the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) which actually kicked out members, many of them highly trained elite combat ready soldiers, for refusing the vaccine, jeopardizing its own operational readiness. Then of course came the travel vaccine mandates where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the unvaccinated that they would not be allowed to board a plane or a train to travel anywhere inside the country and certainly not outside the country. If you can’t describe this as tyranny, I don’t know what other word to use.
Trudeau is almost in a frenzy when he speaks here. It is a little unsettling. These are just a few examples of the sheer madness that engulfed our society as government’s lost their way. Even as it became clear, which it had by February of 2020, that the vaccines did not stop infection or transmission, and that they weren’t as safe and effective as claimed the relentless push to vaccinate everyone continued. Vaccine injuries were being reported, yet still governments forged ahead encouraging boosters and extending vaccines to children who didn’t need them.
When all of this is recounted is it really hard to understand why people like like Marco, George and Alex went to Coutts to take a moral stand against senseless COVID mandates that were doing more harm than good? And to say it was time to take our freedoms back, from governments that had trampled on them so thoughtlessly and severely.
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What an article!! It brought back all the feelings of unjust and sadness of those years. How my poor Dad died of loneliness and neglect during covid lockdowns. How many friends I lost due to not getting the jab or just disagreeing with the narrative The division, the hate, the finger pointing, and far worse the killing and neglect. Unfortunately only 8% of Canadians stood up for themselves. The 92% proceeded to beat up anyone who did stand up for themselves. How did this happen. How can this country be 92% COWARDS? I will never forget nor forgive. And I am quick to recognize when someone is welcome in my life or not, by their values of choice and their words. Thank you for this reminder of how Canadians even after 'knowing the truth', didn't stand up for the Coutts 3. Such a sad sad case of history for Canadians. We must never relent but keep telling the stories so those who are the 92% may realize what they participated in.
This was a great piece Roxanne.