Potential of criminal charges facing Coutts protestors

The Deputy Commissioner of the Alberta RCMP, Curtis Zablocki, says the police plan to press charges against protestors at the Coutts border. Lisa Silver, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, says there is a broad range of regulatory and criminal offenses that protesters at the Coutts border could be charged with. These include violating the Traffic Safety Act, commercial vehicles subjected to inspection, and small charges which include the honking of horns. A charge of intimidation under the Criminal Code could be given out, with an indictable offense of five years or a summary conviction of a year.

“Intimidation is where someone for the purpose of compelling another person to abstain from doing anything that he or she has the lawful right to do. Blocks or obstructs a highway. You can imagine that it’s possible that that charge could be out there because people are trying to get through the border, and that may obstruct a highway. That may stop them from doing something that they have a lawful right to do,” said Silver.

There is currently one lane of traffic flowing freely at the trucker rally taking place at the Coutts border crossing.