Alberta
‘It could have been deadly’: Truckers end blockade at Alberta border crossing

COUTTS, Alta. — A blockade that paralyzed a United States border crossing for more than two weeks ended Tuesday as trucks and other vehicles with horns blaring rolled away from a southern Alberta community.
Protesters had been restricting access to the busy crossing near Coutts since Jan. 29 to rally against COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers and broader pandemic health restrictions.
Canada Border Services Agency said operations had resumed at the crossing and RCMP confirmed later Tuesday that traffic was moving smoothly.
The exodus of vehicles came one day after RCMP arrested 13 people and seized a cache of firearms and ammunition.
Charges laid include possession of weapons and mischief to property.
Four people also face a charge of conspiracy to murder RCMP members, said Chief Supt. Trevor Daroux. He said police worked closely with the Crown to ensure they had the necessary evidence to lay those charges.
Some of the accused were granted release in a Lethbridge, Alta., courtroom on Tuesday. A judge also ordered that they can’t contact one another or be within a 200-metre radius of any protest.
Mounties said an early-morning raid Monday uncovered 13 long guns, handguns, a machete, a large quantity of ammunition and body armour. Two additional weapons were seized later in the day.
RCMP also said a semi-truck and farm tractor had attempted to ram a police cruiser on Sunday.
“The dangerous criminal activity occurring away from the TV cameras and social media posts was real and organized,” said Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki on Tuesday evening.
“It could have been deadly for citizens, protesters and officers.”
Daroux said the RCMP became aware of the heavily armed group a few days after the protest began. He said investigations are ongoing into this group and other events that took place during the blockade.
“Alberta RCMP will remain in the area until we are confident that the situation is safe and stabilized for all who travel through here,” he said.
Protesters are dissociating themselves from the group of people facing serious charges. Organizer Marco Van Huigenbos said that is why the convoy decided to leave peacefully.
He said he has no regrets about participating in the blockade.
“I think we’ve started a movement where people are going to get more involved … at the municipal level, provincial possibly, but also more involvement in politics in general.”
Two tactical vests seized by the RCMP had badges on them, which the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said have links to troubling movements.
One vest had a “Diagolon” patch on it, a white diagonal line across a black rectangle, that is linked to an often conspiratorial and antisemitic group, said Peter Smith from the network. He said the group often talks about a soon-approaching civil war.
“(Their) rhetoric is very violent,” said Smith. “One of the, kind of, common phrases used within the community is ‘A gun or rope?'”
The other patch said “Infidel” in both English and Arabic in yellow. Smith said the patch doesn’t indicate membership to a specific network but is known among Islamophobic militias and biker-style hate groups.
He said the biggest worry is having niche extremist networks that could work to inflame supporters linked to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest.
There was celebrating when the protest started winding down late Monday. A video posted to social media showed RCMP members shaking hands with and hugging protesters. People holding hats or hands to their chests or with arms draped across each other’s shoulders sang O Canada.
Cpl. Gina Slaney confirmed the scene was from Monday night in Coutts.Zablocki said RCMP is aware of the video.
“I will say, we do encourage our members to engage with the public and develop respectful, professional relationships with all Albertans,” said Zablocki. “We will be looking further into this matter.”
Jim Willett, mayor of the village of 250 people, said it had been a while since he had seen anything but semi-trailers on Highway 4.
“I can see all the way to Regina,” he said with a laugh.
Willett said he doesn’t blame the blockade leaders for the cache of weapons.
“They were a well-behaved bunch of people,” he said. “I think the organizers were taken aback as much as we were by what the RCMP discovered.”
The number of protesters at a police checkpoint, north of Coutts, had also dwindled and work was underway to start clearing away a first-aid trailer, a sauna and electric generators.
“Last night, emotions were high … I think a lot of people felt that we were giving up, but we’re not giving up,” said John Vanreeuwyk, a feedlot operator from Coaldale, Alta., also a protest organizer.
“Is it a victory? No. A victory means we’re done,” he said.
The blockade was one of several demonstrations in Canadian cities and border points that stalled trade, stranded travellers and disrupted lives of area residents, particularly in Ottawa.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has said $48 million in trade was lost each day that the Coutts border was closed.
— With files from Alanna Smith in Calgary
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2022.
Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
Alberta
Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

From LifeSiteNews
The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.
A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.
H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.
School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.
In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.
The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”
In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”
The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”
Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”
He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”
“I’m hoping that this demand letter, and all the attention that they’ve gotten over this, causes them to make some change,” he stated.
Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.
According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.
Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”
Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.
Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.
Alberta
Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

From LifeSiteNews
By
The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.
Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.
As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.
The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.
Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.
“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”
According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”
He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”
Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.
All Alberta schools have until October 31 to provide a list of books that will be removed under the new rules, with the ban taking effect on January 5, 2026.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.
The ban was to take effect on October 1.
The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.
The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.
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