Coutts 4 supporters: COVID-19 period was 'awakening' for many Canadians

Thursday's preliminary proceedings for the trial of Chris Carbert and Anthony Olienick – the two remaining defendants of the Coutts 4 – in Lethbridge, AB, remains under a publication ban set to expire when the jury is selected.

Carbert and Olienick are being charged with conspiring to murder, specifically targeting RCMP officers. They are also charged with weapons offences and mischief.

The charges against the two relate to their involvement with the Coutts protest and blockade of 2022, a demonstration linked to the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, ON, via shared opposition to government edicts, orders, and mandates marketed as "public health" measures in response to COVID-19.

The Coutts protest slowed – and at some points completely blocked – traffic across the Canada-U.S. border at the Coutts-Sweetgrass border crossing linking Alberta and Montana. It preceded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act, to broaden powers of law enforcement to suppress the two demonstrations.

Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin, the two other men of the Coutts 4, accepted plea deals to lesser charges in February after initially being charged with involvement in the alleged conspiracy to commit murder alongside Carbert and Olienick.

Rebel News spoke with two supporters of the defendants, Benita and Rose, who travelled to Lethbridge from their homes in Edmonton to observe the trial.

Benita reflected on the background context of the trial, remarking on the restrictions upon constitutional freedoms imposed upon Canadians by the government marketed as "public health" measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission.

Rose, who was born in the former state of Czechoslovakia, warned of communism spreading across Canada and accelerating via governmental apparatuses of control and surveillance in response to COVID-19.

Both Benita and Rose told Rebel News that recent years facilitated a political "awakening" for many Canadians as fundamental freedoms of speech, expression, movement, property rights, due process, and medical privacy were undermined via government policies branded as "public health" measures.

Dozens of Carbert's and Olienick's supporters have been visiting the Lethbridge courthouse and attending proceedings. Several of them told Rebel News that part of their affinity for the defendants lies in shared opposition to coercive government mandates built upon a pretext of "public health".