Now that the chickens are coming home to roost for some of the would-be Canadian colour revolutionaries of 2022, a certain amount if schadenfreude in social media was inevitable given the rhetoric of the Coutts blockaders and Ottawa occupiers. 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in whom Mr. Van Huigenbos once put a lot of faith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

A lot of it can be summarized in the common Internet abbreviation, FAFO, which means, “fool around and find out,” or words to that effect. 

But I can’t help but feel some empathy, although not sympathy, for some of these characters, who were enabled and emboldened by cynical right wing politicians in Alberta and now can’t get them to pick up their calls. 

I know that by saying this I’ll get a storm of comments by folks who normally agree with me saying sharply, in effect, that they should have known better. 

And fair enough. But as anyone who’s survived being a teenager should understand, it’s easy to get carried away by a bad idea that might have life altering consequences. 

Most of us who have fallen out of the back of a moving pickup truck,* for example, live to tell the tale. Occasionally, though, someone ends up sentenced to life in a wheelchair, or worse, as a result.

Alex Van Herk, one of Mr. Van Huigenbos’s fellow protesters at the Coutts border blockade in 2022, found guilty in the same Lethbridge trial (Photo: Facebook/Alex Van Herk).

Which is why it’s a bad idea to ride in the open back of a pickup truck driven by another teenager, just sayin’. If you do anyway, don’t say the old guy at AlbertaPolitics.ca didn’t warn you. 

I speak, of course, of the plaintive social media posts of Marco Van Huigenbos, the former Fort Macleod town councillor and Take Back Alberta stalwart, who played a major role in the Coutts blockade – although, as he tried to insist at trial, not as major a role as the justice system argued. (He resigned his town council seat in February, saying he faced personal legal challenges that “may indirectly cast our community and my role on council in a negative light.”)

Now that Mr. Van Huigenbos and two others have been found guilty of mischief over $5,000 – a charge that may sound light hearted but is a serious offence with serious penalties – he’s suddenly discovered that some of the right-wing politicians he supported, and who he thought supported him, don’t remember his name let alone his telephone number. 

The jury in Lethbridge certainly didn’t waste a lot of time on April 16 finding Mr. Van Huigenbos, Alex Van Herk, and Gerhard Janzen guilty of one count each of that Criminal Code offence, which in theory could result in jail terms of as long as 10 years.

Justice Keith Yamauchi of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench ordered pre-sentence reports for all three, and set a date on July 22 for a sentencing hearing – which is bound to be an uncomfortable wait for the members of the trio. 

Jason Kenney in his heyday as premier of Alberta (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Obviously frustrated, Mr. Van Huigenbos took to social media a day later to complain that “it’s been a bit disappointing how those who have benefited much from my political involvement now remain silent.”

He pointed to Premier Danielle Smith by name, saying that she, “and many other members of the legislature I engaged with privately, frequently expressed their support and sympathy. They even thanked me for my service.”

“To not even receive a private text or message of concern stings,” he admitted. “Hearing instead via many channels that the desire is to put Coutts and Covid in the rear view mirror is well, a bit shocking.”

“Politics is a dirty game,” he concluded. “It’s been a quick study!”

At the risk of being harsh, it’s sad, but underlings being left to twist in the wind, as the saying goes, is an old, old story. No one else is shocked. 

When you throw your lot in with a political movement that emphasizes “the virtue of selfishness,” you should expect no better. 

Calgary street preacher Artur Pawlowski (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Mr. Van Huigenbos would be doing a genuine public service, though, if he were to provide the public with a list of his fair-weather MLA friends from 2022. I imagine that Albertans on both sides of the political rift that now divides this province would benefit from knowing those names. 

In an interview with a far-right website, Ms. Smith, characteristically, blew off the whole matter as “a caution” to would-be blockaders and incorrectly suggested the trio had been charged under Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, not the Criminal Code

The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act was former premier Jason Kenney’s probably unconstitutional effort to intrude on federal criminal law jurisdiction, although it was promoted by Mr. Kenney as a tool to suppress protests by environmentalist and First Nations opponents of petroleum industry infrastructure projects. 

But all that proves is that Ms. Smith can’t be counted upon even to be technically accurate when she’s blowing off her former allies in the civil war within the UCP over whether or not to skid Mr. Kenney.

“‘Coutts must win’ was what you said at the time,” Mr. Van Huigenbos complained on social media, addressing Ms. Smith, last Saturday, “what happened?” 

What happened is the Mr. Van Huigenbos and his comrades got charged and suddenly had the potential to be a political inconvenience to Ms. Smith. She had already learned after her efforts to pardon anti-vaccine street preacher Artur Pawlowski last year that she not only doesn’t have the powers of a U.S. governor, but that acting like she does can get her in political hot water. 

Coutts must win. Really? 

One imagines Mr. Van Huigenbos’s lawyer has advised him to stop commenting publicly on this matter until the pre-sentence report has been completed and his sentence handed down. 

That too is good advice that someone who is a quick study really ought to take to heart. 

*I’m pretty sure a frequent commenter on this blog was driving that pickup truck down Pandora Avenue in Victoria when your blogger fell out. No names, though, because he probably doesn’t even remember, and his dad sold that truck decades ago. 

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33 Comments

  1. Danielle Smith has no respect for ethics, or for law and order. A cabinet minister from Peter Lougheed’s government, Jim Foster, who was an Alberta Crown Prosecuter, even said this, when he was mentioning her involvement with Arthur Pawlowski. There should have been charges laid by the R.C.M.P. Danielle Smith also should have resigned. She is trying to distance herself from what has been happening, so she won’t try and slip up. However, Danielle Smith still will slip up.

    1. Anonymous I agree with you and when she slips up she will fall in a toilet full of her stinking ideas and beliefs. I cannot wait.

  2. Also…never car surf at a bush party…speaking for a friend who lost her sense of smell from a resulting brain injury.

  3. Quelle Surprise.
    Please note if you are visiting Alberta,
    if you see a F*** flag waver or a F*** bumper sticker or it is wearing a similar t-shirt or a wexit, or axe it or spike it or is promoting the prosperity project or any other Albertans have been abused by Ottawa project like TBA or the APP
    Please note
    These are the tacit admissions that the participants are just too stupid to discuss politics but like the notoriety and social acceptance parroting these displays gives them.
    Avoid and do not engage. Reason will fail you and destroy your day and the lack of knowledge of whatever the subject is by them will amaze you as will the tenacity with which they cling to their rhetoric as they urge you to “do your research” .
    These truly are the uneducated that Donald trump says he loves.

    1. I gringe every time I see a f…k whoever , usually JT on someone’s pickup truck, ball cap or bumper sticker. I am so embarrassed for our Province. Unfortunately what these people don’t know or think they know would fill a shot glass.

    2. Apparently Danielle Smith also loves the uneducated which is why Alberta classrooms are at 45 kids per class and not a peep from our liar in chief about prospects of building more schools.

    3. I was riding the shuttle back from Canmore — where I’d attended a Labour School put on by my union — to Calgary airport yesterday and listening to Nate Pike’s ‘The Breakdown’ podcast when he interviewed Dr Jared Wesley of the University of Alberta. In the interview, Dr Wesley discussed his public opinion research into how polarized Albertans really are in comparison to how polarized they think they are. Fundamentally, what his team’s research shows is that Albertans are far more moderate in their views than we think, but that they ascribe more extreme views to their fellow citizens than is the reality. For example, support for an Alberta Pension plan is quite low (sorry, I don’t recall the number Dr Wesley cited: I didn’t take notes), but when you ask respondents “how strong do you think support for this idea is?”, they think a far higher proportion of their fellow Albertans support this idea. If I recall correctly, the gap is about 15-20 percentage points between level of support and perceptions of support.

      What this ultimately means, in my view, is that there is a “received wisdom” about certain contentious issues in Alberta politics that could lead people to think their moderate positions on those issues are in the minority when they’re actually not, and that it may be unwise to air those views lest they alienate their friends and neighbours, even though they might actually agree with them. This is inimical to democracy as it leads to only the most extreme views having a voice in the public square.

      https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-breakdown-with-nate-pike/id1493155854?i=1000653518180

      https://www.commongroundpolitics.ca/viewpoint-alberta

  4. Another great column, David, thanks for writing it.

    In the same way the Coutts blockaders are now a political embarrassment to Danielle Smith, the Ottawa Occupiers, and Pierre Poilievre’s support of them, will surely become an embarrassment for the CPC leader in next year’s federal election. I have no doubt photos of Mr. Poilievre bring them coffee will resurface during the campaign.

    1. I think that by the time the next federal election comes, people will have had their fill of the present Liberal government. It is tired and treading water in the policy and delivery of programs areas. Voters will then have to choose among parties like NDP (Singh), Conservative (Polievere), Green (whoever?) or People’s Party ( can’t remember the name). I leave the Quebec parties out because the majority of voters do not have that choice. There isn’t much in the window of the candy store today. I doubt people will vote overwhelmingly for NDP, Green or Peoples’ Party, thus Conservative may be the only one they can choose. It would be interesting to see our premier’s position once a Conservative government is in Ottawa.

  5. Thanks for another fantastic column, David. I wonder if other journalists will look into which MLAs offered moral support to the “Coutts Four.” It’s hard to believe a future premier was among those egging these guys on. I’m amazed no one died as a result of the B.S. that took place near Coutts.

    1. Scott: I think we know, or at least can surmise, who some of them are. Ms. Smith herself, of course; Shane Getson, who took part in a truck protest in Edmonton; and Grant Hunter, who showed up with his family at the blockade. There are probably another four to six who are likely suspects because of their hostility to Jason Kenney at the time. DJC

  6. Note to Queen Danielle …

    If you make friends with the worst people — for your benefit — always be certain to assist them when they take the arrows for you. I did not. Learn from my misfortune.

    D.J. Trump (45)

  7. These three were a little naive if they thought they were fully supported by and under the protection of Danielle Smith. As adults well past their teen years, this goes beyond the status of a youthful prank. They alone are responsible for their actions.

    They would do well to shut down their social media accounts for a while, take a break from interviews with media of all sorts and spend time showing some remorse for their actions. They should also work on writing thoughtful statements for the court. Do they understand the harms caused by their actions? Do they realize that some people affected by their actions at Coutts might have long-lasting trauma? Do they know that admitting they were wrong might heal some wounds in their own communities? I believe the people of the southern Alberta communities affected by their actions would forgive them, but first they have to show remorse and contrition and mean it.

    If they thought they were going to launch a Supreme Court challenge of the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act and have their names go down in history, they were wrong. No one gets to choose their charges. Their names will go down in history as lawbreakers instead.

    As it was when the first troops of the North-West Mounted Police headed west in 1870 to maintain order in the North-West Territories, so it was in 2022 at Coutts. Maintiens le droit.

    I might have to take a trip to Fort Macleod this summer to relive history at the reconstructed fort. Maybe I’ll stop at Fort Whoop-Up in Lethbridge to see the place where the American whisky traders set up shop in the 1870s, before the NWMP ran them off. History shows that the settling of the Canadian West was not like what happened in the American West. If the blockade at Coutts was inspired by the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, we saw once again that American ideas do not translate well north of the 49th, where police arrived to establish order before settlers.

  8. Will Marco vote for Danielle again? I wonder what all of the convoy, anti-vaccine supporters think of this? In my small southern Alberta community there are still, those convoy, anti-vaccine supporters who still fly the Canadian flag on their property. That the Canadian flag is still, being used in this manner, is, for me, a negative thing, as is the ultra right wing, maga-capitalist, calvinist so-called christian bent involved with all of this.

    1. Trying to remove a current government control by force while flying the flag of the same government is a classic false flag operation. Were not enemy combatants just summarily shot when found impersonating the enemy by wearing their uniform?
      The convoy highground while wrapped in “peaceful protest” and hot tub picnics was a very murky, muddy vermin infested swamp.

  9. The neighbours’ roofer’s convoy-adjacent half ton is parked in front of my house today. To piss him off, I sent an anti-Albertan letter to the Hon. Steven Guilbeault subject-nasty stuff in oilsands water. Here is the much more eloquent and informed letter from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Keepers of the Water, and
    Environmental Defence: https://ecojustice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-11-Letter-to-Minister-Guilbeault-re-s.-76-request-to-assess-OSPW-NAs.pdf
    Foolish teenagers fall off trucks. Other (or the same ones) naive 15 year-olds take their backpack to Europe and return raging socialists and eco-warriors. Such is life.

    1. Emily: Both things can happen to the same teenager, in my experience. DJC

  10. Marco claims tens of thousands of Albertans went to Coutts, which seems far-fetched to me. I wonder what the RCMP count was?
    I am also sceptical of Marco’s sanctimonious tweets about politics. When the donations for the UCP leadership race were made public I noticed that Marco gave sizeable amounts to two candidates, Smith and Toews. I suspect he understands more about politics than he lets on.

    1. the single person perspective
      If you are surrounded by twenty trucks ….there are trucks everywhere .
      At one point in this “we have the total support of all the truckers in canada ” claim , I did the math.
      Triple the number of trucks claimed and compare to the the total of canadian trucks registered and less than a fraction of one percent were involved. Same with truckers and class one licences .
      For the amount of media coverage of an event that could have been resolved with pricey parking tickets it had to be one of the greatest diversions ever. From what? Your guess is as good as mine but they never let an opportunity that good go to waste.

  11. I think I was in my late teens/early twenties when I dumped a former teacher. We were in a hayfield and had a half-ton truck partly stacked with bales and my favourite teacher on the stack. Someone told me to drive the truck to another pile of bales. I could do that though I had no licence and little experience driving. I saw a pile in the rearview mirror and whipped the truck around in a sharp U-turn. When I arrived I looked back and the teacher was standing amongst fallen bales with his hands on his hips. He had jumped when he felt the stack going over.

  12. FAFO…very apt, DJC. Perfectly sums up my feelings about those Coutts would-be revolutionaries. Suckers as they are – blindly doing the bidding of dark right wing money – they still deserve to have the book thrown at them.

    Reminds me of another acronym, one that unfortunately seems like the guiding philosophy of the UCP/TBA: FIFO. Fit In or F**k Off. Seems to be their prevailing attitude at the very least.

  13. I was laughing out loud at the column about poor Mr. Huigenbos getting left in the lurch by Ms Smith. I think FAFO is perfect here and I look forward to the sentences for the so-called Coutts Four.
    This just after I heard the story about Ms Smith setting up a panel to examine government response to the COVID pandemic. Oh but wait… we need to hear the other side of the story, the unscientific side. Appalling all around. I look forward also to Ms Smith’s eventual comeuppance.

  14. I don’t think it can be pointed out often enough that supporting Smith leads to learning to live with disappointment. It did in her previous political life and I am not surprised that is starting to happen again. History does repeat.

    Some conservatives such as Kenney are fairly consistent in their thinking, sometimes to the point of being rigid, but just when you think you have Smith nailed she morphs into something else. Who else could have evolved from a libertarian to a social conservative, to a free spending politician just before the election and then back to spending restraint right after. She generally sounds convincing and so absolutely certain of her positions, until she decides she wants or needs to change them.

    She has no doubt realized the Coutts gang served their political purpose and are now no longer helpful for her. I gather they are starting to realize this too.

  15. First, an aside: The Virtue of Selfishness is hardly a motivating factor for all conservatives – most of us abandoned Ayn Rand in our dorm rooms once we became adults, and I couldn’t stand her facile philosophy even in those days. If you want to know where my support for free market capitalism comes from you should look at Why Nations Fail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail.

    Mr. Climenhaga: we probably live close enough together that I can lend you my copy, and I checked – SAPL has it. 🙂

    I was always surprised at how the person who crossed the floor from the Wildrose Party because she found the “lake of fire” folks distasteful is the person that the anti-vax crowd has chosen to trust as the “true” conservative. Then again, we’re talking about a group of people who demand vaccine freedom but think it’s a travesty to allow a land owner to put up a windmill within fifty miles of Dinosaur National Park because someone might see it. Ah well.

    Danielle Smith is hardly the only person to use COVID as a populist lever to draw in voters. Without suggesting I agree with the trucker convoy (I sincerely don’t), two thing can be true at once; Justin Trudeau’s insistence on long haul trucker vaccination was less about health and safety and more about using a wedge issue to shore up voters. Based on his comments on the Daveberta podcast we can look forward to more of the same from Naheed Nenshi if and when he wins the NDP nomination.

    When it comes to protest most people seem to have a certain propensity to hypocrisy. I’ll come out and say that it’s not OK to block a road until you get what you want whether it’s for vaccines, the environment, BLM, Palestine or any other cause. I would think my own (conservative) team would agree, but that’s life I guess.

    1. Hi, Joe. Good to hear from you. As I have said before, some things are so important that civil disobedience is an appropriate response – and we aren’t, obviously, always going to agree on what those issues are. But if someone decides to take that course, it should be engaged in with the recognition that there may be penalties, they might be severe, and complaining about them is undignified and to a significant degree hypocritical. You didn’t heard Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. whining about going to jail. I’m glad to hear that at least some modern Conservatives have put their Ayn Rand aside. I’ve been wondering about that. DJC

      1. Something tells me that there are a lot of reasons history will be less kind to Marco Van Huigenbos than it was to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. 😛

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