COVID-19
Questions linger after Coutts verdict
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 LifeSiteNews
Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan rejected a lawsuit from more than 300 past and current members of the Canadian military who lost their jobs or were put on leave for not taking the experimental, dangerous COVID shots.
A Canadian federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed on behalf of some 330 past and current members of the nation’s military who lost their jobs or were placed on leave for refusing the experimental COVID shots, because she alleged that their lawsuit lacked “evidence” that the jabs were harmful.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members had sought some $1.3 million in damages from the government for having their charter rights violated due to the military’s 2021 COVID mandates, according to their lawsuit.
In a November 13 ruling, Edmonton-based Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan ruled in favor of the Trudeau government, and thus military’s COVID jab mandate, to strike down the case. Coughlan remarked that the plaintiffs’ case lacked “material facts” along with “evidence” and was filled with “vexatious language.”
READ: Canadian father files $35 million lawsuit against Pfizer over son’s jab-related death
“The only indications of bad faith are found when the pleadings baldly assert that, among other claims, Canada failed to carry out safety and efficacy testing for the vaccines, and that the Directives were premature and ‘promoted the fraudulent use of the biologics’,” she wrote, overlooking reports of thousands of injuries due to the shots in Canada alone.
As a result of the lawsuit being tossed, all plaintiffs are now on the hook to pay some $5,040 out of pocket in legal costs.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in June, documents obtained by LifeSiteNews show that the number of jab injuries in the CAF rose over 800 percent in 2021, with the most being credited to Moderna’s experimental COVID shot.
The CAF members’ lawsuit was filed in June of 2023 and overall sought some $1 million in damages, along with an extra $350,000 in general damages. The lawsuit also had a condition that there be a declaration made that mandating the COVID shots for military members was a violation of their charter rights.
READ: Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8
LifeSiteNews reported in July that a member of Canada’s military who was injured after taking the experimental mRNA COVID jabs has been denied compensation from the nation’s Veterans Affairs department.
Under the CAF’s mandate, hundreds of military members were fired, or one could say, purged for not getting the COVID shots. This is in addition to the thousands of public servants fired for not agreeing to take the COVID shots.
The CAF eventually ended its COVID mandate in October 2022, which was months after the federal mandate was lifted, but members are still “strongly encouraged” to take the experimental shot.
The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that its federal COVID shot workplace mandate would be dropped in June 2022, as would the mandate requiring domestic travelers have the shot to board planes and trains.
In November of 2023, a CAF member who spoke to LifeSiteNews under the condition of anonymity observed that the military considers members who refuse the COVID jab “a piece of garbage.”
READ: COVID shots have 200-times higher risk of brain clots than other jabs: new report
In March, LifeSiteNews reported on large personnel losses causing the CAF to consider dropping its remaining requirements altogether.
Although Canada has a Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) program, active members of the CAF, as well as veterans, are not eligible for the civilian program. According to Christensen, this leaves many COVID jab-injured CAF members and veterans with no recourse other than Veterans Affairs Canada.
COVID shot mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as heart diseases, stroke, and death, including in children.
The shots also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.
From the Brownstone Institute
The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.
Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.
The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.
President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?
In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.
HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.
When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.
In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?
The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.
I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.
With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.
You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.
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