THE COUTTS FOUR AND THE END OF WORKING CLASS PROTEST

democracy and freedom are becoming luxury beliefs.

This week on the podcast, I did a shamefully belated, deepish dive into the Coutts Four — shorthand for the prosecution and holding-without-bail of four protestors, a trucker movement controversy unfolding without national fanfare. Meanwhile, Tamara and Chris are still on trial in Ottawa. This week’s episode, with Gord Magill a trucker/reporter, Jaclyne Martin (wife of one accused) and a Danielle Slettede, friend of another.

Our media and institutions are so captured by their own propaganda they have convinced themselves it is perfectly normal to hold non-violent Canadians for nearly seven hundred days without so much as a critical peep. They are being denied bail for what appears to be the thinnest of reasons.

Could this be more lawfare — a tactic being deployed in America against people who don’t line up for the Democratic Party? Some people, from former President Trump to the January sixth protestors and other various Republicans, many of them MAGA, are having their lives ruined even as I write this. Is this happening here, where there is less direct political involvement in the judiciary?

Well, just think back to the Covidian takeover and how virtually ALL court cases challenging lockdowns and vaccines were lost, despite evidence of harm. Judges found in favour of public health no matter how solid the case against it. History further supports those plaintiffs and there should be a larger discussion about what happened but don’t hold your breath. The cases reflect some judge’s tendencies to mirror community standards and this includes edicts from public health.

I have had many long talks with my friend, Bruce Pardy about this very subject and it was one of the main reasons I fell into depression, pre-convoy. There was no one to save us, not even our courts. I realized that when things become authoritarian in obvious and destructive ways, there is not much Canadians can do to reverse course, except protest and civil disobedience. And we know how that turns out if you are on the wrong side of the only acceptable ideology. Or working class. Or both.

Lawfare is about how the outcome of a charge becomes irrelevant because the laying of it can ruin people by putting them through a distorted judicial process. Lawyers are expensive. Publicity is poison. Careers are destroyed and friendships are broken. The origins of the phrase and its early use in international human rights law, below:

The concept of lawfare was popularized by Charles Dunlap, who defined it, in 2001, as “the use of law as a weapon of war.” He subsequently expanded the definition to “the strategy of using – or misusing – law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective.” In a similar manner, David Kennedy explains lawfare as the “waging of war by law,” in contrast with what most see as law’s restraining effects on war. Dunlap intended the concept to be “ideologically neutral,” but its contemporary use is often pejorative, invoked as an accusation to undermine the legitimacy of a legal strategy. Empirically and rhetorically, the concept of lawfare has been employed to question the legitimacy of detaining “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo, the intentions of the Goldstone Report, the agendas of NGOs in the Middle East, and the tactics used in the War on Terror. It has also been used to assess the legitimacy of international criminal tribunals.

I learned just prior to recording this week’s show that there are conflicts arising between Coutts Four family members and other supporters and some may become public this week. This will add to the unfolding drama by pulling asunder a group that formed for perhaps the best of reasons, got some attention on social media and is now attached to fundraising campaigns. If I was a betting woman, I would take odds that this fractious outcome is common for people caught in deeply dehumanizing scenarios, where they are made to feel somewhat helpless. But I don’t know. My advice to them is to stop and sort out your problems in private as best you can.

The gist of the case from Gord Magill, a trucker who writes for Newsweek — and who, along with Ray McGinnis, is one of the few reporters exposing this dark story.

Four men caught in the government's dragnet have not been as lucky. In February 2022, Anthony Olienick, Chris Carbert, Christopher Lysak, and Jerry Morin were arrested in separate locations throughout Alberta on allegations that they had conspired to murder Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in Coutts, Alberta, a second protest site, as part of MacKenzie's group. And though three of the men had no criminal records, they were all denied bail and have been languishing in prison for nearly 600 days. (Crown Prosecutor Steven Johnston declined a request via email for an interview. The RCMP did not reply to a request for comment.)

Some of the charges are serious and at some point, the Crown has to either put these men on trial - or drop the prosecution.

I want to add a shout out to a young man who came to my attention through Gord and Ray — Mocha Bezirgan who has been driving to Lethbridge to cover the trial on his own dime. Amazing. He looks about twenty-two and he restores a bit of my faith in my old profession. Go Mocha!

Stay Critical.

Busy week, coming.