More Questions on Coutts Four as Publication Ban Prevents Further Media Coverage of Pre-trial Proceedings

Why are they still in jail… and why weren’t they witnesses at the Public Inquiry?

The Coutts Four* are still behind bars, yet they have never been convicted of a crime, and they have yet to go to actual trial before a jury of their peers to face the charges against them. They have been in the pre-trial phase of their court proceedings since June of 2023, which, thanks to a recent Supreme Court Ruling, there is now a complete publication ban on all matters that occur during the pre-trial – which is before the jury is brought in to hear the evidence.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 7-0 decision, on October 23, 2023, that in order to protect the fairness of the justice system, journalists cannot broadcast or publish portions of a criminal trial that take place before a jury is constituted, in other words, during the pre-trial process. Chief Justice Richard Wagner provided the court’s rationale saying, "Publication of information that comes out at pretrial conferences may very well be prejudicial to the fair trial interests of the accused." 

*Jerry Morin, Tony Olienick, Chris Lysak, and Chris Carbert.

These four men had attended, supported and/or participated in the Coutts Border blockade, in the town of Coutts, Alberta, during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa that took place between late January and the first two weeks of February in 2022. They were arrested following a series of RCMP raids in the Coutts area on February 13th and 14th and charged with, among other things, conspiracy to commit murder of police officers. All these events occurred – coincidently – just hours before the Trudeau government invoked the Emergencies Act to bring an end to the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. 

This new ruling on the pre-trial publication ban means that matters that occurred in the Coutts Four court proceedings, before the Supreme Court issued this ruling are now subject to that publication ban. The only thing that can be said is that prior to this ban, a matter arose that may have been beneficial to their case–that can no longer be made public. Independent reporter, Mocha Bezrigan, had been at the Lethbridge courthouse from November 1 to 3rd attending pre-trial motions on this ‘matter’. He noted that the recent Supreme Court ruling on the publication ban was mentioned as a reminder in this particular case. Bezrigan tweeted later, "I’m in the courtroom of the Coutts 4 right now, and the things that are taking place would be in the magnitude of a bombshell in the political arena, but I can’t report on it like I’d have been able to during July’s pre-trial due to the automatic ban."

Mocha Bezirgan.

Whatever that bombshell is, we cannot know because of the publication ban. The bottom line is, however, that these four men are still in jail, and when I say jail – I do not mean an actual prison. They are being housed in three remand* centres – which are essentially holding cells for people charged with a crime until they are released on bail, except these guys have all been denied bail for over 600 days. Remand centres, as a rule are not designed to hold prisoners long term and lack many of the amenities that prisons offer, such as daily exercise routines or facilities, complete meals, access to health care, access to a library, computers, the list goes on. All of these men have spent time in solitary confinement – through no fault of their own – and sometimes for their own safety.

Jerry Morin is being held at a Calgary Remand Centre, Lysak and Carbert are at the Lethbridge Remand Centre and Olienick is Medicine Hat.

So the question still remains, why are they still in jail? Why have they not gone to actual trial–what has happened to the right to a speedy trial in Canada’s justice system, if we can still call it that?  Why is it that under the Trudeau government’s catch and release bail system, an accused cop killer and repeat violent offenders can get bail while these guys have been denied it. None of them have criminal records. They are all family men, some with children, some of whom are raising them on their own. It remains a mystery doesn’t it? Mainstream media isn't interested in their predicament. Once they got those pictures of the table of guns supposedly seized from them by the RCMP, and a few details about the arrests and the charges were released, they wrote their articles about these four ‘dangerous’ guys–along with some spurious allegations made by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, about Diagolon, the organization they were supposed to be affiliated with. Then their stories were filed away never to be heard again. Stories like this excerpt from a Global News article

Of course all of this is unproven and speculative, and based on the unsubstantiated and biased allegations of the left-leaning Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

But here’s another question that no one has asked. Why weren’t these men allowed to testify at the Public Order Emergencies Commission (POEC) Inquiry? They and the charges levelled against them form the very basis for the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act. Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, both considered the primary organizers of the Freedom Convoy, were both facing criminal charges as result of their involvement in the convoy. They had not yet been tried, yet they were allowed to testify.

Jerremy Mackenzie tesifying at the POEC from his jail cell.

Jeremy Mackenzie was allowed to testify. He was the founder of Diagolon, the ‘extremist’ organization the Trudeau government, and specifically then, Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, implied that these men were associated with. Mackenzie* testified from his jail cell, so being incarcerated didn’t seem to hamper giving evidence at the Inquiry. 

*The charges for which Mackenzie was being held — also without bail — were not associated with Diagolon or the Freedom Convoy.

Shouldn’t they have been called to testify as to how they were associated with Diagolon and/or its founder Jeremy Mackenzie. Shouldn’t have been called to testify as to how they got involved with Diagolon, if in fact they had? Shouldn’t they be questioned to determine if they thought that it was, if in fact, a far-right neo-fascist accelerationist group whose connection to the convoy could lead to violent extremism, as the Canadian Anti-Hate Network claimed? 

This is a claim the POEC Commissioner Paul Rouleau may have taken at face value given his ruling that the government was justified in invoking the Act. Shouldn’t they have been called to explain what exactly their involvement was at the Coutts blockade?

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino in a media briefing claimed the following about the Coutts Four: The dangerous criminal activity occurring away from the TV cameras and social-media posts was real and organized. It could have been deadly for citizens, protesters and officers. We need to be clear-eyed about the seriousness of these incidents and indeed, several of the individuals at Coutts have strong ties to a far-right extreme organization with leaders who are in Ottawa."

Their testimonies might have considerably muddied the waters in terms of the government's justification for invoking the Emergencies Act. Given that Mendicino had described them as a ‘hardened group of individuals, armed to the teeth’, and with ‘strong ties to a far right extreme organization’. Maybe if people had seen them, and heard them speak – testify – that might have called Mendicino’s description of these men into serious question. If they had been allowed, as part of their testimony, to explain who they were, their lives, their families, their jobs–because they all had jobs, some even ran their own businesses, to humanize them.

That might have made it very difficult for the public and perhaps even for the POEC Commissioner Justice Paul Rouleau to square this with what the government and the RCMP had alleged about them. Because he said in his ruling that justified the invocation of the Act, the he found Diagolon’s presence—which he assumed these men were affiliated with to be: "the most troubling connection between the protest locations.‘

With their testimonies these ‘boogeymen’ that, it would seem were responsible for the invocation of the Act, as the government had claimed, weren’t looking so scary or extreme in their beliefs, or like a ‘hardened group of individuals armed to the teeth’ as Mendicino claimed they were. That wouldn’t be a good look for the government, and might have made the cross-examinations of Mendicino and the RCMP Commissioner, Brenda Lucki, as well as other Cabinet Minister’s a little spicier, per say. So maybe we have our answer as to why these men weren’t called to testify, and why they are still sitting in jail.

Gord Magill who has a Substack ‘The Autonomous Trucker’ recently interviewed Jerry Morin’s wife Jacelyn Martin on his podcast The Voice of GOrD. In the episode titled Enemies of the State, she provided some candid and in some cases very serious insights in how she and Jerry are both dealing with which, to many, would be be an untenable situation. She also provides a blow by blow narrative of the events leading up to both their arrests, which makes it even harder to believe the allegations that Jerry was involved in any conspiratorial plot to kill police.

Enemies of The State with Jaclyne Martin

Jacelyn and Jerry in happier times.