Chris Carbert and Anthony Olienick Courtesy Bridge City News/YouTube

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ray McGinnis

The Coutts trial may be over, but the questions it raises about justice and overreach continue.

A jury in the trial of Chris Carbert and Anthony “Tony” Olienick rendered a NOT GUILTY verdict on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder of police officers. Known as the Coutts Two, Carbert and Olienick’s trial lasted from June 6 to August 2, 2024. After two and a half days of deliberations, the jury also found the pair GUILTY of possession of weapons for a dangerous purpose, and mischief over $5,000. Olienick was also found GUILTY of possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose.

On February 13, 2022, Olienick was arrested outside Smuggler’s Saloon. Early on February 14, 2022, Chris Carbert was awakened from his sleep in a trailer by police loudspeaker.

Two Co-Accused Had All Charges Dropped in February

Conspiracy, possession of weapons, and mischief charges were also laid against Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin. Carbert, Olienick, Lysak and Morin, were dubbed the Coutts Four.

Lysak was arrested in Coutts late on February 13, 2022. Morin was arrested heading west of Calgary on Hwy. 22. He would work for a rancher near Priddis, a three-hour drive from Coutts. Lysak and Morin had all the original charges in the indictment dropped on Feb 6th, 2024.

Lysak pleaded to improper storage of a firearm. That charge typically results in a minor fine, not two years behind bars. Morin pled guilty to conspiracy to traffic firearms, not to trafficking firearms. Two years in custody — including solitary confinement and being witness to brutality between prisoners — had taken its toll.

Tony Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns, told this reporter, Morin was not guilty of the new charge to which he plead. But this was the plea deal the Crown would agree to. Morin and Lysak were released after 723 days behind bars.

Carbert and Olienick maintained their innocence. However, pre-trial deliberations in court dribbled out for over a year before the trial itself.

The Accused Were Unarmed
None of the original Coutts Four — Carbert, Olienick, Lysak or Morin — were armed when arrested. None had a criminal record. Three of the four are fathers with children. Before his arrest, Lethbridge resident Chris Carbert was a self-employed fisherman who also ran a landscaping and fencing business with nine employees.

Years before his arrest, Tony Olienick took part of the clean-up in High River, Alberta, after the 2013 floods. The self-employed gravel truck owner got contract work at a stone quarry.

Coutts Charges Cited to Invoke Emergencies Act

At the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry in November 2022, several senior cabinet and government officials cited events in Coutts as one of the triggers for invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act on February 14, 2022. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland testified “we heard from the RCMP Commissioner about concerns that there were serious weapons in Coutts . . . that really raised the stakes in terms of my degree of concern about what could be happening.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated, “the occupation at Coutts seemed to be emboldened.”

Coutts Mayor, Jimmy Willett described the protesters as “Domestic Terrorists.” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino testified “the situation was combustible… individuals… involved in Coutts were prepared to go down with a fight that could lead to the loss of life, . . . would have triggered other events across the country.”

The Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, pointed to the “seriousness” and “scale” of the “illegal activity,” “the quantity of weapons and ammunition discovered by the RCMP… contemplated by people at Coutts.” This confirmed her view that these people were insurrectionists, bent on “overthrowing the government.”

Yet, no bodycam footage and no recording entered as evidence in the trial substantiated claims by RCMP that Carbert or Olienick plotted violence against police. In January 2024, a federal court ruled the invocation of the Emergencies Act was “unconstitutional.” The August 2 not guilty verdict for conspiracy to commit murder adds to the perception of government overreaction to the protests.

A Surprise from the Crown
In its closing words to the jury, the Crown suddenly alleged there was a hand-off of weapons on February 11, 2022.

The Crown should provide full disclosure to the defence before the trial concludes so allegations can be tested in court. Never mind. This last-minute allegation may have swayed the jury to find the defendants guilty of the possession of firearms charge and Olienick of possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.

Sentencing and bail hearings were scheduled from August 26 to 30. The week of September 9, the judge at the Coutts Two trial will hand down sentences for both of the accused given their combination of i) not guilty of conspiracy to commit murder verdict by the jury and ii) guilty verdicts for possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and mischief, and for Olienick a separate guilty verdict for possession of an explosive for a dangerous purpose.

By then, the pair will have been in custody for 935 days.

This commentary is first of a three part series. Read part two here, and three here.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. His forthcoming book is Unjustified: The Emergencies Act and the Inquiry that Got It Wrong

From the Brownstone Institute

By  Ian Miller 

They’re never going to stop.

We’re a few months away from the end of 2024, four and a half years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a truth that should clearly be universally acknowledged by now, that the pandemic policies enacted by global governments were a catastrophic failure.

Mask mandates were pointless, harmful, and completely ineffective. School closures were one of history’s biggest mistakes, causing learning loss among young people that will set them back an entire generation. Business shutdowns achieved little except for hurting small business owners at the expense of massive corporations and necessitating a rolling series of money printing leading to rampant inflation.

Then we witnessed the formerly unimaginable emergence of vaccine passports.

Regardless, those policies have generally, and thankfully, come to an end. Overwhelming evidence, data, and scientific studies have confirmed that the Anthony Fauci-CDC doctrine was based on nothing, and accomplished less. But among the fearless media columnist set, there’s a desperation to return to the glory days of pandemic restrictions. The latest example coming from an opinion article published over at The Hill, complete with the usual misinformation, poor reasoning, and willful ignorance of current realities.

Continuing the trend that Fauci started.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky on December 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Media Personalities Can’t Let Go of Bad Covid Policies

The column by Aron Solomon presents several absurd arguments, blaming a “recent surge” on “new variants” and saying we “need to take stock of where we are” with the virus.

“The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has disrupted summer travel plans, overwhelmed healthcare facilities in certain areas, and left many Americans dealing with the familiar symptoms of fever, cough and fatigue,” Solomon writes. “The summer months, typically associated with lower respiratory virus activity, have instead seen a significant uptick in COVID-19 infections.”

This is factually inaccurate.

The summer months have traditionally been associated with higher respiratory virus activity in certain parts of the country. The South and Southwest have consistently seen higher Covid spread in the summer months, corresponding with past flu patterns. Even the extremist public health agencies such as the one that dictated their edicts to the city of Los Angeles have acknowledged that summer surges have happened every year since 2020.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what the data shows, summer increases in Covid spread, decreasing over time as population immunity grows and testing decreases.

But Solomon’s run of misinformation wasn’t done there.

He then blames the “relaxation of public health measures” for the increased Covid spread this year.

“Second, the widespread relaxation of public health measures has created an environment conducive to transmission,” he writes. “Mask mandates, social distancing guidelines and restrictions on large gatherings have all but disappeared. This return to normalcy, while massively psychologically and economically beneficial, has provided the virus with ample opportunities to spread.”

The pointless mask mandates disappeared years ago in many parts of the country, which is just as well as they conclusively did not matter. Comparing regions with and without mandates has consistently shown that areas with mandates have the same Covid rates, if not worse. Even in California.

It just doesn’t matter, because masks don’t work.

Solomon then advocates for the return of pandemic restrictions and a “commitment to public health” to combat the summer 2024 surge.

“While much progress has been made in terms of vaccination and treatment, the current surge is a stark reminder that complacency is not an option. The road ahead will require a renewed commitment to public health, both from government leaders and from individuals.

We all need to prepare for not only the possibility of continued disruptions but for another new normal that might be a little closer to 2020 than how we’ve recently been living. That means preparing for future waves and the long-term implications of a world in which COVID-19 remains a persistent, if manageable, threat.”

Beyond the absurdity of demanding restrictions that have already failed, Solomon is ignoring that there was effectively no “surge” in summer 2020, in any meaningful metric. Getting sick, unfortunately, is a part of life. People will have colds, flus, Covid, and their resulting symptoms forever. No matter what we do.

But what matters is whether these waves lead to a substantial increase in associated deaths. They conclusively have not. Per the CDC’s Covid Data Tracker, Covid-associated mortality is essentially near all-time pandemic lows.

Roughly 1.8 percent of all registered deaths across the country were even tangentially associated with Covid. Those massive peaks though? Those came with the strictest restrictions of the pandemic, the restrictions Solomon wants to return.

Even the massive increase in 2021-2022 came after vaccines and boosters were widely available.

But a combination of immunity across a wide swath of the population effectively ended the pandemic. It had nothing to do with any pandemic policies from governments here or abroad. The fact that this is even remotely up for debate is a testament to the power of media misinformation and a willingness from people like Solomon to ignore contradictory information.

There is no emergency, there is no need to reinstate restrictions of any kind to deal with Covid. Especially because those restrictions are useless anyway.

Republished from the author’s Substack