Three peaceful Coutts trucker protesters—Alex, Marco (a town councillor testifying at the Public Order Emergency Commission), and Christian George—face 10-year prison sentences despite no violence, with prosecutor Stephen Johnston pushing severe charges while omitting key protester voices like Ben Dictor from legal standing. Dictor, excluded from the Convoy Corporation’s representation, counters false claims, including Keith Wilson’s politically motivated Bitcoin accusations, revealing independent actions by figures like Dean French and Tom Morazzo. The inquiry risks whitewashing government overreach while silencing early protesters, with only one group granted standing amid broader concerns about fairness and the Emergencies Act’s misuse. [Automatically generated summary]
In fact, I'm shivering on the street corner as I record this.
We're going to talk about the prosecution of three truckers that the government of Alberta wants to put them away for 10 years.
They were peaceful protesters, nothing more.
10 years in prison?
We'll tell you about that story and we'll hear, well, we'll tell you what happens in court.
Before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
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Thanks very much.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Sensoryism bug.
It's just after dawn.
It's about 8.20 a.m. here in Lethbridge, Alberta.
I'm in front of the courthouse.
You can see there's a lot of police with some body armor, and they set their bikes up away from the walls.
I'm not quite sure what that means.
I asked them, what's going on?
There's so many police around the city.
Every single corner has a police vehicle with red and blue lights flashing.
I said, is there a drug kingpin on trial, El Chapo, maybe?
And we had a chuckle because, of course, no, there's no drug kingpin or mass murder on trial.
Just three ordinary men, men of the community, who were at the peaceful protest at the border between Coots, Alberta, and Montana earlier this year.
That was a completely peaceful protest that was very successful.
It caused Jason Kenny, the premier at the time, to blink and to agree to abandon the bigoted vaccine mandates and other lockdown provisions.
It was an echo convoy to the big one in Ottawa that achieved much the same nationally.
Those protesters were peaceful and they ended peacefully when Kenny announced that they had won.
But that wasn't enough for Kenny and his prosecutors.
And so we are here today in November for a hearing of three men from that convoy, peaceful men, who are being prosecuted by, I can only describe him as a man with a vendetta, Stephen Johnston, a prosecutor who is demanding that these three peaceful men spend 10 years in prison.
I say again, there was no violence, there were no weapons, there was none of that.
10 years in prison.
And I Googled this guy.
I mentioned this earlier.
This same prosecutor, Stephen Johnson, recently asked a judge for a four and a half year sentence for a man convicted of a brutal rape.
So a violent rape for this prosecutor deserves four and a half years in prison, but a peaceful trucker protest deserves 10 years in prison.
What's so atrocious here is that this does not reflect either the public interest.
I don't know what the likelihood of conviction is, but I do know that this is one of the reasons Jason Kenney is no longer premier.
And yet this legacy holdover, like the prosecutorial deep state, continues, even though the new premier, Danielle Smith, has apologized to those who were abused by the lockdowns and has said that she looks to review these out-of-control prosecutions.
Here's the Premier, Danielle Smith, saying that to our reporter, Celine Galas, just a couple weeks ago.
Hi, Ms. Max, Lee Gales with Rural News.
During your campaign, you said that not only would you issue an apology to those prosecuted during COVID restrictions, but you would also grant them amnesty.
When can we expect those apologies?
I can apologize right now.
I'm deeply sorry for anyone who was inappropriately subjected to discrimination as a result of their vaccine status.
I'm deeply sorry for any government employee that was fired from their job because of their vaccine status.
And I welcome them back if they want to come back.
As for the amnesty, I have to get some legal advice on that.
And so I've already asked my staff to request that advice so I can see how we would be able to proceed on that.
My view has been that these were political decisions that were made.
And so I think that they can be political decisions to offer a reversal.
But I do want to get some legal advice on that first.
Would that also have to do with the timeline for the proposed amnesties?
I would have to see, you know, if I can do it away, I would do it at the earliest opportunity.
So I'm hoping within the next week, I'll get that legal advice.
So I'm here, and the main trial will not be happening today.
But rather, I understand that there will be a hearing.
This same Stephen Johnson, the out-of-control prosecutor who wants 10 years in prison.
I can't even believe I'm saying that.
If we were in Russia or Iran or China, that would make sense.
10 years in prison for peaceful protests.
But in Alberta, motto, strong and free.
It's just, it's unnatural.
Anyways, Stephen Johnson, this prosecutor, he's no dummy.
He's mean, but he's not stupid.
And he knows that these men, if they have a trial in Lethbridge, Alberta, will certainly be acquitted.
Lethbridge is one of the more freedom-loving places in a freedom-loving province, and there's massive support for these men.
Hundreds of people are expected at the court today.
You could already see them gathering around, even though it's quite cold.
Even some of the police officers who I've been talking to without my camera on are clearly sympathetic to the protesters.
So Stephen Johnson knows that the likelihood of a conviction, let alone a 10-year sentence in Lethbridge, is low.
So I understand that he wants to take the hearing out of Lethbridge and move it to another venue.
I understand he's saying that there are security concerns, thus the bicycles.
You know, he's a bit of a coward, as most bullies are.
He's not moving this out of Lethbridge because of security concerns.
He's moving it because he wants to move it to a jurisdiction that he's forum shopping, as we say in the law.
He wants to go to a court that's more likely to convict.
He would probably go to Toronto if he could, or Edmonton, or maybe put Rachel Notley on the panel.
We're going to cover this because this is abusive.
This is prosecutorial misconduct.
I say that advisedly because there are two conditions to prosecute any crime in this country.
The first is, is it in the public interest?
There is no public interest for prosecuting these men.
And second, is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction?
Well, I would like to say, I would hope that in Canada the answer to that is still no.
That you can't put a man in prison for 10 years for peacefully protesting.
But wouldn't that be quite something?
We'll find out.
Congratulating Peaceful Protesters00:04:13
And I'm going to be here throughout the day.
We'll introduce you to the three men later.
And we'll talk to their lawyer, Chad Williamson, who's on the file along with his colleague, Yoab Neev.
Rebel News, as you know, reports the news.
We tell the other side of the story.
That's actually our motto.
But one of the things I'm most proud of at Rebel News is that every once in a while we get involved to make a difference.
We don't just act like voyeurs gawking at things.
Sometimes when there's a real injustice, we try and fight it.
And we are in this case.
What we've done is a promise we made to these men, a promise that I personally made them on the telephone.
I don't know if you recall, but when these truckers were holed up in the saloon in Coots, Alberta, they could feel that the police were dealing with them in bad faith.
And we had two reporters embedded with them, Sidney Fizzard and Kian Simoni.
And they mentioned that sometimes Rebel News does crowdfund lawyers.
And they called me.
I was at home and they called me on my phone from the saloon and they said, Can you help?
We should pretend today.
Well, as you are the man of the hour, you're the lawyer for the man of the century.
What's brought you here?
So the amazing civil liberties initiative launched by the Rebel to get these guys some representation and hopefully confuse the tense situation that we've got down here.
It's hot, and you know it's cold.
So we're going to try to bring some clarity to everything and try to see if we can bring parties together.
That's your mission today.
And what is your expectation, let's say, for the day and even for the future?
Going ahead.
Well, I mean, there's a lot to do.
First, we want to obviously meet the group and meet the protesters and then establish a connection and a rapport with the authorities that are on scene so that we can start productive negotiations if that's possible.
And I know you play tuned to nail and our supporters are going to be able to help you do that through ShrokerLawyer.ca and I know everyone here really appreciates your support.
Thanks.
Yeah, we've got a great team here today.
It's Martin Raymond and myself.
It's early morning, so we're on scene and I don't want to leave until this thing's over.
So we probably know from my reputation, I do as well.
First of all, I just want to commend you guys and congratulate you for taking a stand for our constitutional rights, our charter rights, and for exercising your right to peaceful protests.
So on behalf of Albertans and Canadians in general, I thank you for what you've done.
It's going to be a trying process and frankly, I can't promise you guys that we're going to be able to fudge the government on this stuff.
But we've got, I mean, you know, we're the people and we've got the power, right?
So give yourselves a round of applause just for and as I've told everybody, this is pretty serious business and obviously you guys are aware of that, what you're doing, what's on the line and what's at risk.
So if you need Marty or me, we're here to help you.
The legal fees are being crowdfunded, so that's great.
And you guys will have representation, okay?
So thank you guys again.
We're not going to be going anywhere.
So we'll be floating around all day if you have any questions.
We are going to be dealing with a couple folks that hopefully will be representing the majority of interests here.
And once we have a little bit of a meeting downstairs, we'll be establishing our connection with the authorities to start negotiations.
So thank you guys again.
Again, a big round of applause for everybody.
This isn't easy.
And, you know, my family arrived in Alberta at the turn of the 20th century over 100 years ago.
And I'm about as Albertan as they come, but I still don't think that that even measures up to what you guys are doing no matter when your families arrived in this province.
So my hat's off to you.
Minor vs. Indictment00:05:44
Well, I made that promise and I bloody well better keep it.
So we were keeping it in a number of ways.
A lot of people from that Coutz blockade have minor offenses, really glorified traffic tickets.
That's easy to defend.
I think we've got about 30 cases like that.
But this is the only case emanating from that saloon of truckers where a vendetta-driven prosecutor wants 10 years in prison.
That's not messing around.
That's not a slap on the wrist.
That's not a fine.
That is a life-altering sentence.
He wants to convict these men and throw them in prison for more than twice as long as he wanted that rapist to go to jail, this prosecutor Stephen Johnston.
We can't let that happen.
We have promised, and we will keep the promise, to crowdfund the legal defense for the three men.
I have spoken at length with the lawyer, Chad Williams, and I believe he's the right man for the job.
Chad Williamson is an excellent lawyer.
By the way, he had a very important victory for Rebel News in 2021.
I don't know if you remember, but Chad was the lawyer Rebel hired to get us into that federal leaders debate when Trudeau banned us.
That was a bit of a miraculous win.
If Chad can win in federal court against Trudeau, I think Chad can win here in Lethbridge against this bigoted prosecutor.
I call him bigoted because you've got to have a screw loose to think that peaceful protesters deserve to be in prison for 10 years.
That is something from an authoritarian regime.
I actually think this is a bit of a test of Danielle Smith's government because, you know, we do not believe in political meddling in prosecutions, not at all.
But if a case is clearly not in the public interest, if it was ginned up for political reasons, if it was a political decision to prosecute these men, a political decision to grant them an amnesty can be made as well.
And I'd like you to go to lockdownamnesty.com and sign our petition there.
But the most important thing is we've got to help these men in court today.
I made them a promise, and I would be grateful if you helped me keep that promise.
Go to truckerdefensefund.com and chip in.
I've talked to Chad.
He bills very reasonably, but this is going to be such a massive trial.
We do need to come up with a lot of dough to help see these men through.
You can see the resources of the state.
I was talking to one of these cops earlier, and I was joking about there being this gangland trial.
I said, all that's missing is the helicopter, the eye in the sky.
He said, yeah, I wish we had one.
I don't know if he was joking around or just sort of daydreaming about a gadget, or maybe he really is an authoritarian who thinks that we should spy on our citizens and that we need a helicopter and that the police response you see here isn't strong enough.
Like, this is actually a disgrace that these police are deployed against peaceful citizens.
I'm embarrassed.
Then again, the Lethbridge Police Force has had some scandals of their own in recent years.
All right, you can see I'm angry.
I'm going to sign off now, but I'll come back to you with more from our reporters who know these three men, and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to them too.
Well, it's almost noon.
We're outside the Lethbridge courthouse.
Standing next to me is Sidney Fizzard, one of the two Rebel News journalists who were embedded with the Coots truckers for more than a week during the lockdown.
It was very important that they were there documenting the interaction between the police and the truckers.
Of course, we made a documentary film out of that.
The three men who are on trial in this building behind us were three of the truckers.
They're peaceful men.
I want to emphasize that.
There were other people in this country who were charged with the weapons offense, and I don't know the truth or the falsehood of that.
But the three men who are on trial here, Alex, Marco, and George, completely peaceful.
There is no violent element whatsoever to their charges, and yet the prosecutor demands 10 years.
Now, today's hearing was very brief.
It was the Crown, the prosecutor, choosing to go by indictment.
There's some crimes in the criminal code where you can deal with them in a summary or minor matter or indictment, which is a very serious matter.
Going for the indictment is absurd.
It's the same kind of over-prosecution that Tamara Leach was subjected to when she was imprisoned for nearly two months for inciting mischief.
I don't think that's ever happened before in Canada or, frankly, the United States or the UK or Australia.
Here they're going after these three truckers by indictment, but that does give the truckers the right to have a judge and jury trial.
And as Chad Williamson, the lawyer for the three men, said in a brief speech to the rally gathered outside, there is no jury in Alberta that would convict.
Here's Chad.
Mr. Jansen and Master Hugabos the right to be tried by a jury of their peers.
We believe that 12 randomly chosen representative jurors reflect the common sense, the values, and the conscience of this community and is very important in this case.
Once disclosure has been properly received, we'll proceed to trial by jury immediately.
There will be no deals and no concessions of any kind.
We have another court date, which is a procedural court date scheduled currently for December 12th of this year.
And I will be down for that appointment as well.
Key Figures in the Prosecution00:13:19
Thank you very much, John.
When I say there's no jury in Alberta to convict, I should probably say there's no jury in Coutts or Lethbridge or probably even Calgary, but I suspect that the prosecutor in this case is going to try and move the trial to a friendlier jurisdiction for him.
If he could, he'd probably move it to downtown Ottawa or Toronto.
It'll be an interesting battle ahead.
The next court hearing is on December 12th.
It's called an arraignment.
Again, it'll be a very quick hearing.
This matter will go on for many months, perhaps years.
The process is the punishment.
No normal human being could afford a lawyer to fight this case, let alone three severely normal citizens, ordinary men.
That's part of it here.
That's the vengefulness.
That's Trudeau and Kenny and the Kenny prosecutor.
All right, enough preamble from me.
Let's talk to a reporter who was there, embedded in the Coutes blockade, and who has been covering the three men and will lead our coverage in the months ahead.
Sidney Fizzard, Sid, great to see you.
Oh, absolutely.
It's a pleasure to be joining you, and I'm glad that we're here representing these guys.
Well, you've really come to know them.
I mean, you spent a lot of time with them in close quarters.
You and Key and Simoni went down there, and I still chuckle because I remember when you guys went down there, and we just thought, oh, you're going for a day.
I don't think you guys even back to change your clothes.
And you were down there for a great period of time, really in close quarters.
And it was almost like a bunker, this saloon.
It was bloody cold out.
I think you probably got to know these men as well as anyone.
Well, certainly, I hope, aside from, let's say, their family, but all of them, the three individuals and everybody who was there at the blockade and at the demonstrations in the area, were all the salt of the earth Canadians that you would expect to show up at a peaceful protest.
And that's what it was.
And that was literally the cause for them to say, we're going to wrap up.
We've made our message clear.
The people have heard us, but today is the day that we're going to peacefully depart because peaceful message is the key.
Yeah, well, I remember when you and Kean Simoni were down there and you called me saying, can we get lawyers for these guys?
And I said, yes.
So we're here to keep that promise.
And it's going to be an extremely expensive case because it's, you know, proceeding by indictment, judge and jury trial, three defendants.
I only met the defendants for the first time today because, I mean, they're local guys.
How would I meet them?
I live out east.
Oh, here's the cops going by.
You know, probably the largest deployment in Lethbridge since the Second World War.
I was bantering with one of them about, you know, I mean, listen, I suppose those cops are just following orders, but that's not an excuse I like very much.
Let's get back to the three men.
They seem like, I mean, one of them, I mean, we're going to meet them and get to know them in the weeks and months ahead.
These are regular guys.
One of them is even on a town council.
I couldn't even believe it.
Like, he's a local elected official.
Yep, yeah, that's Marco.
And not only is he a town councillor, he's also going to be a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission to speak on the events of the Couttes blockade and how they relate to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
Very interesting.
And I met the other guys, very normal, quiet, private people, not the kind of people that would be like George.
I met him.
You know, feels a little old school, a little old-fashioned.
Certainly not someone who likes the limelight.
Very modest man, a Christian man.
Not the kind of person who should be in a criminal trial.
Give me a word about George.
Incredibly calm, I noticed.
Determined, sure, absolutely.
But I just remember the way he would compose himself through the entirety of when I saw him at Coots demonstrations or the blockade demonstrations is he was a very collected individual, very peaceful, by all accounts.
I think at one moment, and this is many individuals had done this, where he was like, you know, let's pray, let's lead a prayer here.
These are religious individuals.
They're regular South and Albertans.
There's nothing of them in any capacity that I saw spoke to them being violent or malicious in any regard.
Even as Marco had suggested when he made a speech here, it was that, you know, thank you officers for being here.
We understand there's, you know, a bit of turbulence in the situation, but this is a part of the system is to have law enforcement, and we are thankful to everybody in the situation.
You know what?
I'm Jewish, and so our Old Testament is a little bit different than the New Testament.
New Testament has a lot of turn the other cheek, you know, talking about love.
That's one of the things that makes Christianity so important and so successful and so valuable.
Judaism, the Old Testament is a little bit more fire and brimstone.
And there was a real Christian flair here today.
Not a flair, but a Christian kindness.
And I respect it, but I have to say I don't share it, Sid.
This praising of the police, and I know that's the right thing, that's the noble way to be, but I saw some RCMP liaison officers bantering with the protesters, and you told me that those were the same RCMP tricksters, the dirty tricksters who were negotiating in bad faith with the truckers in Coutz.
They're the ones who were collecting intelligence on the truckers to feed to the prosecutors, to give them, those liaison officers are likely going to be witnesses in this trial.
And there's just some, listen, I love Christians and I love the Christian mindset, but there's something about like joking and bantering and we respect you kind of talk to RCMP officers whose mission even today is to get every scrap of intelligence to put these truckers behind bars for up to 10 years.
I just don't have that milk of human kindness in me, Sid.
Maybe it's nothing to do with religion.
Maybe it's just my quarrelsome personality.
But I did not like that chumminess with the police snitches and spies who are trying to put these truckers away.
I'm just built different, Sid.
Well, I think, and I implied that they respect the police, and that could very well be a fair statement.
But more to the point, they appreciate the stance of the cops.
They don't let them off the hook, though.
That's the thing, is they hold the police accountable to their words.
Now, the problem you allude to is the fact that they are literally walking CCTV cameras, gathering evidence and information against them.
But part of this, too, is the fact that a lot of the blockade supporters, those who are at the demonstrations, they don't have anything to hide.
That's a good point.
But, you know, the head of the, when the founders of the KGB said, show me the man and I'll find you the crime.
And that's the thing about what I've discovered is if they can put Tamara Leach in prison, if they can put Arthur Pavlovsky in prison, neither of which has ever had a trial on the merits of their case, if they can put a pastor and a Métis grandma in prison for a month and a half without trial, show me the man, I'll find you the crime.
These cops can put anyone in jail.
And it's really rocked my faith in the judicial system and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And I say this as someone, when I was in law school, we were taught that the Charter of Rights was the highest document in the country, tantamount to the Bible for lawyers, and it's proved to be worthless.
Listen, I'm going to maintain a keen interest in this because it's a terrible story.
We have to help these men.
We made a promise to help them.
We have to keep that promise.
The promise was to crowdfund their legals.
We have to do that.
But it's also a political story in that these officers, these RCMP, those Trudeau's cops, Brenda Lucky's cops, and you have Jason Kenney's prosecutor.
And Trudeau's cops and Brenda Lucky have been discredited.
And Jason Kenney has been defenestrated.
And you've got a new Premier, Danielle Smith, and we will stand with these truckers and fight with them.
But the right thing would be for the prosecutor to say, you know what, this is not in the public interest.
We are not going to proceed.
And I have hope that the new Premier of Alberta will call off this show trial.
Well, and September 16th, I believe, is when the RCMP laid these charges, the three charges of mischief.
And they alleged that these guys were the key participants of the Coots blockade.
Or in other words, they alleged that they were involved in a peaceful protest, and now they're getting charged.
And the punishment, which seems to be sought after by the prosecutor, is the 10 years in prison.
Is this the standard we want to set?
Yeah, well, as I mentioned earlier, one of these same prosecutors asked for four and a half years for a rape, a rapist.
So he obviously thinks peaceful protests is worse.
Well, Sid, I mean, I was glad to be down here.
I flew in and drove down, and I know you guys got up super early this morning because the convoy had come in from out of town.
I really appreciate you following this file.
I think you have to continue following this.
I'm going to try and come for some of the court dates arising.
The next one on December 12th, again, it's going to be a 10-minute court hearing.
I'm not sure if I'll come in just for that.
But we have to cover everything like that.
We have to also tell the story of who these men are.
One of the ways we've been successful in fighting for Arthur Pavlovsky is to let people know who he is.
In the case of Pastor Arthur, he's noisy.
He speaks with firm words.
Like he's a little bit Old Testament in his style, frankly.
He talks about lions versus jackals and hyenas.
I like it.
He's a tough guy, but he's very peaceful and nonviolent, obviously.
People have come to know Arthur Pavlovsky, and so they've come to know the charges against him were outrageous.
We have to let the world know about these three men who I've only just met today, Alex, Marco, and George.
We have to tell the story to prove to the world in the court of public opinion that they are regular people.
Chad Williamson will do his job in the court of law.
You have to do the job, you and the rest of the rebel team in the court of public opinion.
Show the world who these men really are.
Show what really happened in Coots.
Help us crowdfund the lawyer, and let's see if we can get justice.
Because the idea that these men would be put in prison for 10 years is not a Canadian idea.
That is a Soviet idea.
Last word to you, Sid.
Well, two things that come to mind is you mentioned, well, Chad Williamson, I think, is by far the best legal representation.
Williamson Law is the best group to represent these guys because, and as you mentioned earlier today, is that they were there.
They were the mitigators between the RCP and protesters at the time.
They were there representing these protesters from almost day one.
And I think there's no better candidate than that.
And as well, lastly, I'll mention Arthur Pulowski.
I think his longest time spent in jail, the 51 days, was in relation to the Coots blockade and him allegedly inciting protesters to block the highway.
So who's the leader here?
Who are they going after?
And months later, they're going to charge them with mischief charges and allege them to be key participants.
Do they even know what they're doing at this point?
Is my big question.
That's a great point.
I was talking to Sarah Miller, Arthur's lawyer, who says it was the same prosecutor, Stephen Johnston, who was demanding that Arthur be kept in prison.
He is a bad apple and he's rotting the bunch.
And you know what?
Stephen Johnston, this out-of-control, vendetta-driven prosecutor, that's the Jason Kenny Trudeau prosecutor.
But there's only so long you can say that.
Danielle Smith, if she's premier one month, two months, three, four, five, six months, then this out-of-control prosecution by a vendetta-driven prosecutor is no longer Kenny's guy.
Then it becomes Danielle Smith's guy.
Now, give the new Premier a chance to get her feet under her and get control of her ministries.
But every day this prosecution continues makes it less a Jason Kenney prosecution and more a Danielle Smith prosecution.
I hope she stays this prosecution, which is her constitutional right as the boss of the Attorney General.
Sid, thanks for joining today.
Lao, looks like you had one more thing you want to say.
Well, silence speaks volumes, and I do hope she speaks.
I hope so too.
Well, it's good to be down here with my colleagues Mocha Bazirgan, who's behind the camera and Sidney Fizzard.
We've been covering this, and I'm happy to be here.
And I will come back.
I'm not sure if I'll be back on the December 12th event just because it's a 10-minute court hearing, and I'm not sure if I want to make the very large journey just for that.
But we will tell these men's stories.
We will have a team here.
I just don't know if it's going to be me coming in from Toronto.
Well, thank you for your support.
This trucker convoy is what freed our country.
And, you know, we're getting back to life as normal, but it wouldn't have been this way were it not for the truckers.
And it's vengeance and political comeuppance.
That's what is driving this prosecution.
We have to document it and we have to stop it.
Well, that's it for today.
On behalf of all of us around the world for Rebel and here in frosty Lethbridge, Alberta, to you at home, good night.
and keep fighting for freedom hey everyone william yes here with rebel news in ottawa currently covering the emergencies act inquiry which is taking place from october 13 to remember 25th Since in February, Justin Chun voked the Emergencies Measures Act on peaceful, law-abiding protesters who are protesting the federal COVID-19 mandate.
Ben's Testimony Omitted00:09:54
Today, I bring you an interview I did with Jim Carahalos, leader and co-founder of the New Blue Party of Ontario, as he was representing Benjamin Dictor during his testimony.
Dictor testified in front of the Public Order Emergency Commission, as he was originally, from my understanding, one of those who organized the Freedom Convoy at its genesis.
Carahalios studied law at the University of Ottawa prior to entering politics and spoke to us about why he decided to represent Dictor during the inquiry, what his views are on the Freedom Corp, which basically is Samaralish, Chris Barber, Tom Rozzo, notably.
He also touched on Dictor's views of his relationship with Tom Razzo and a lot more.
Watch how our interview unfolded.
What were your general impressions from the testimony at the cross-examination?
You know, it was expected what we're going to see from Mr. Dictor.
He was in an unfortunate situation of being surrounded.
He previously thought he had standing.
The Convoy Corporation, as you heard, kind of let him on, telling that he was going to have standing.
And then he found out he didn't have standing.
And he applied to get standing, which would have given them the right to cross-examine others.
It was dismissed.
He applied to have his own lawyer lead the testimony.
That got dismissed.
So he was kind of really surrounded, you know, like most of the other witnesses have parties that are in standing that can back up the witness, right?
And so he had a particular tough time because every party asked him questions, they were all trying to get at him, right?
So a very difficult position he was put in today, and I think he did well.
It was very unfortunate yesterday listening to Mr. Wilson's testimony.
And as you heard Mr. Dictor say today that, you know, he heard a rumor that they were going to try to throw him under the bus, and that's what they were doing.
And the facts were made up to try to make it look that way.
But we were able to point to evidence that discounted everything Mr. Wilson said yesterday.
Why do you think it is that Dictor didn't have standing, unlike everyone else?
Because at the time when it was due in June, he was under the impression that they were all going to have standing together, the directors of the corporation, and his name was left off the application by the Freedom Corporation.
And he only found out about it by August.
And so when he tried to apply for standing with Chris Guerra together from Adopted Trucker, the commission dismissed it.
And the Convoy organizers and their lawyers really are not representing the original directors because if you look at the standing list, the majority of the seven original directors are not listed there.
So we don't really know who they're speaking for, but they're not speaking for the original directors.
And you said that Keith Wilson's testimony yesterday was unfortunate.
That's what you just said.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
Yeah, it was terrible.
He used the word sabotage with regards to Ben.
He accused Ben, or he said that he didn't know what Ben had done with the money that was raised in the Hong Kong Coddle Bitcoin campaign.
And Keith Wilson was the lawyer for Ben in the class action at the time.
And he knows full well that all of that Bitcoin money is now being held by the court.
I shouldn't say money.
Bitcoin assets are being held by the court in an escrow.
And Ben cooperated with that.
But yesterday he made up some facts saying, I don't know what happened to the Bitcoin assets.
It's very unfortunate.
I don't think anyone, when they hire a lawyer, they expect to see the lawyer not know the facts of the case and throw their former client under the bus.
I see.
What do you think is the reason why some people left Ben out of the decision-making process, withheld information from him throughout the convoy?
I think that they were all left out of it.
I think the evidence that was shown today was that you had Dean French, first chief of staff for Doug Ford, working with Tom Arazzo, not an original director, a friend of Randy Hilliers, and Keith Wilson.
And they went off and they tried to do their own thing.
And the board wasn't at that meeting.
There's no signature on whatever deal letter was there.
And there were four people in communications and none of them were briefed.
So it's very clear to me that they weren't operating on behalf of the board of directors of the Freedom Corporation.
They had other interests in play.
I see one last thing.
You're the leader of the New Blue Party.
I know that you went to law school prior to that.
What was the reason why you're the person representing Ben Dictert's day instead of someone else, for instance?
I think I'm the best lawyer for it.
I know the facts very, very well.
And I know what it's like to be surrounded by a bunch of parties.
And Ben reached out.
He needed help.
He was supportive.
And I don't like to see people getting left behind at the end of the day, getting scapegoated, thrown under the bus.
It's very difficult for people in this situation to find a lawyer.
I mean, most lawyers are not going to be comfortable representing someone that was involved in the protest.
And on top of that, most lawyers won't know the facts.
And so he reached out and he needed help, and I agreed to come here today to help him out.
And I'm representing him on the class action as well with Mr. Chris Guerra, who's the startup, the Adopt a Trucker campaign.
And what did you hope to see come out of his testimony today?
The truth.
That's all we can hope that comes out, is the truth.
And he had nothing to hide.
He pointed to documents.
We were able to file new evidence.
It's unfortunate that he found out after the fact that he wasn't being represented by the lawyers of the Freedom Corporation at the inquiry or the class action anymore, because if he had standing, it would have given us the opportunity to cross-examine the others, both the Government of Canada, cross-examine Keith Wilson, cross-examine many others.
But he wasn't given that opportunity, so we did the best we could in the limited time we had to get the truth out for a witness who obviously put in a lot of time, had a broken ankle, a car crash, didn't get anything out of it, and is getting thrown under the bus by Doug Ford's buddy Dean French, by Keith Wilson, who endorsed Jason Kennedy to be the Premier of Alberta.
We all know how that went, turned out, and by Tom Morazzo, who's friends with Randy Hillier.
And I think you followed very closely all the work that Randy Hillier did in Ontario to undermine the new Blue Party.
So these guys have ulterior political agendas and they like piling on people like Ben Dictor and others.
And they like to corner people in defenseless situations.
The way they teamed up on my wife when she was in the legislature and never gave her any support, never gave her any backup.
And, you know, we got the JCCF and the head of the JCCF, chairman of the board, is Tanya Granick, Allen's husband.
And you know, not a supporter of the New Blue Party.
So what their motivations are, it was pretty obvious.
When you see that line in the email from Keith Wilson saying Trudeau is going to be pissed, he's got other interests.
He's trying to pin all the mandates on Justin Trudeau.
Dean French helping his friend Doug Ford, so everyone forgets that a lot of the mandates were against Doug Ford.
And they're driven by politics.
And today, we had to cram as much as we could in three hours to get the truth out so that they couldn't walk away out of this throwing Ben under the bus.
How do you think the whole inquiry is going?
Last question, how'd you think the whole inquiry, do you think we're seeing a justification for the invocation of the Emergencies Act?
Of course not.
It's unfortunate the way the inquiry is going because I think there's close to 20 parties that have standing.
And you really only have one party that's representing the Convoy Corporation.
And Chris Guerra is not part of that, who started up Adopt a Trucker.
Ben Dictor, who you heard today was the spokesperson of the corporation.
He's not part of it.
Chad Eros, who Keith Wilson threw under the bus yesterday, was the treasurer.
He's not part of it.
And the inquiry's only given one position of standing to the protesters, right?
So they want it both ways.
They want to stay in the inquiry.
There was all these different groups and it was out of control.
But then when it comes to giving them a seat at the table, they're only giving one view.
And that's the view of Keith Wilson and Tamara Leach, who's under a lot of pressure.
It would have been nice to see two or three other parties given standing.
We did everything we could to balance the scales here to get the other narrative out.
The story of Chris Guerra, the story of Ben Dictor.
We applied for standing late when both those individuals found out they weren't going to be included in the decision making.
We applied to have Ben's evidence led by me.
Both of those things were dismissed.
I'm grateful that the commissioner gave me extra time today to get to the bottom of some stuff, but we only had three hours and this inquiry is going to focus most of its time on the government players.
and only a limited time for those who were there on the ground in the beginning, the first seven days, before they got pushed aside by others that had political objectives.
This version of event is quite different from what Tom Ratzo and Keith Wilson recalled during their testimony.
While Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller cross-examined Ben Dictor, everyone could clearly see the tension.
The inquiry will be continuing for nearly three more weeks.
Dictor and his counsel, Carol Halios, were not given standing by the commission, which means they will not be allowed to cross-examine any other witnesses who will be appearing on the stand.