The Alberta Court of Appeal has upheld the convictions of two men convicted of mischief and weapons offences during a border blockade at Coutts, Alta., in protest of COVID-19 mandates in 2022.
In an Oct. 1 decision, the court dismissed appeals from Chris Carbert and Anthony Olienick, who challenged their convictions for possessing weapons for a dangerous purpose. Olienick also appealed his conviction for unlawfully possessing an explosive.
A jury convicted the men in August 2024 but acquitted them of conspiring to murder police officers. Neither man appealed his mischief conviction for obstructing the highway.
The appeals focused largely on whether police lawfully gathered evidence and whether the trial judge should have excluded it.
Justices Dawn Pentelechuk, Kevin Feehan, and Joshua Hawkes upheld the convictions despite finding that police violated the men’s constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. They concluded that the firearms and related evidence should remain admissible.
“Excluding the evidence in the context of these prosecutions would do greater damage to the integrity of our justice system,” the judges wrote.
The blockade began in late January 2022 as protesters opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health measures. RCMP came to believe that a group within the larger protest was stockpiling firearms and ammunition and preparing for violence against police. The rest of the protesters decided to shut down the blockade so they would not be associated with the more serious allegations, and so the protest remains peaceful.
Officers arrested the men in February 2022. A police search of a Coutts property where they were temporarily staying uncovered rifles, handguns, ammunition, body armour, and other items. Police later found two pipe bombs at Olienick’s residence in the municipal district of Willow Creek.
One central issue of the appeals involved emergency wiretaps, which allow police to intercept private communications without first obtaining a judge’s approval when strict conditions are met, including an immediate need to prevent serious harm.
The trial judge found that police could initially use that power but violated both men’s rights by continuing beyond 24 hours without obtaining judicial authorization. He excluded communications intercepted after that period.
The appeal court went further regarding Carbert, finding that police lacked sufficient grounds to intercept his communications from the outset.
Although Carbert appeared willing to help with a suspected firearms delivery, the judges said that did not establish reasonable grounds to believe he intended to seriously harm police or knowingly assist someone who did. Undercover officers neither witnessed the delivery nor confirmed it happened.
“Utilizing s 184.4 against Mr. Carbert on this evidentiary record casts too indiscriminate a net,” the judges wrote, referring to the emergency wiretap provision.
However, Carbert did not demonstrate how the additional unlawfully intercepted communications affected his convictions or establish that they should be excluded, the court said.
The judges reached a different conclusion about Olienick’s initial wiretap. His statements to undercover officers showed hostility toward RCMP and a willingness to use violence, they said. His security role and involvement in the suspected firearms delivery also supported police concerns.
They rejected his argument that police should simply have arrested him earlier, noting that arresting one person might not have eliminated the perceived group threat and could have worsened the situation.
The court also agreed that the warrant for the Coutts property was too broad. Police had not adequately established which trailer the men occupied, while the search affected other residents’ privacy.
The judges found that the trial judge should have assessed the search and wiretap violations together.
They concluded that excluding the firearms evidence was unwarranted. Police had sought judicial approval for the search, demonstrating an effort to comply with constitutional requirements. The judges said the seized items were reliable evidence, while excluding them would have severely weakened the prosecution’s case.
The court upheld the warrants for Olienick’s truck and residence, finding sufficient supporting evidence. It also rejected allegations that police deliberately misled the judge to obtain the Coutts warrant.
Carbert separately argued that his weapons conviction conflicted with his acquittal on the murder-conspiracy charge. The judges disagreed: possessing firearms for a dangerous purpose did not require an agreement with others to murder police.
They also found that the trial judge properly instructed jurors to assess each man separately and require prosecutors to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
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