A U.S. citizen with a gun mistakenly ended up in front of Canadian customs officers twice rather than once while trying to join a Freedom Convoy protest last January, US Services Agency documents show. borders of Canada (CBSA).
The incident, which strangely happened twice, was documented in the CBSA’s “situation report” of January 30, 2022, about protests by truck drivers angry over sanitary measures.
“There were two incidents in which firearms were used, but it was quickly determined that it was the same American citizen with a legal firearm who made a wrong turn to Canada at different [postes frontaliers] of the Pacific region as he attempted to travel to protests on the U.S. side of the border,” the document read.
This report is one of 1,200 pages produced by the federal government obtained by The duty before they are released by a parliamentary committee tasked with overseeing the Emergencies Act. This emergency law was invoked last February to put an end to the protest movement which disrupted the city of Ottawa for three weeks and blocked various border crossings in the country.
American protests
This armed and lost American citizen was trying to join a demonstration announced on social networks in support of the Convoy of freedom in a park, on the side of the United States, but glued to Canada. He first accidentally ended up at the Pacific Highway border crossing, south of Vancouver, then at the Douglas border crossing, just over a kilometer further on the British Columbia border.
In total, about twenty other motorists would also have found themselves by mistake at one or the other of these two border crossings in order to go to a demonstration announced online at the Arche de la Paix park, in south of the border line.
Eventually, few American protesters actually showed up there. The extent of American support for the Canadian protest movement has also been greatly exaggerated in some media. Former Canadian hockey player Theo Fleury, for example, provided completely outrageous estimates of the size of the Freedom Convoy on Fox News in the United States.
“Despite online propaganda indicating that thousands of Commercial Motor Vehicles (CMVs) were congregating on the US side of the border in an attempt to enter Canada, only small groups consisting of personal vehicles and a very small number of VAC were formed,” notes another intelligence report from the federal agency.
As for the armed American, he was officially refused entry into Canada for not having been adequately vaccinated against COVID-19. The only consequence would have been to have had to return to where he came from. A government official told the To have to that his weapon, declared, was handed over to American customs officers at the time of deportation, as required by procedure.
The CBSA declined to confirm details of the case, claiming it constitutes “personal information.” In an email to To have to, his spokeswoman, Karine Martel, writes in particular that firearms must be declared to customs officers when entering the country. In the case of travelers “returned for a secondary examination, this is not considered an arrest or detention. »
“Increased vigilance” during the convoy
The federal government has been instructed to exercise “increased vigilance” at the border for members of ideologically-driven violent extremist groups beginning in late January 2022, the report shows.
On February 7, the authorities note that they received information according to which an individual already convicted of arms trafficking in the Yukon was suspected of wanting to supply weapons to the demonstrators.
Federal agents were also keeping a close eye on Romana Didulo, a notorious Canadian conspirator who claims to be the real queen of the country. The woman ended up among trucks in Ottawa after making death threats on social media to those responsible for the vaccination against COVID-19, in particular.
The only known weapons search to have taken place during the Freedom Convoy was ultimately conducted on the fringes of the border blockade in Coutts, Alberta, for which 13 people were arrested. Officers seized 13 long guns and 2 handguns, bulletproof vests, a machete and “an excessive amount of ammunition”.
A note from the RCMP also reported, on the same day as the invocation of emergency measures, on February 14, that information indicated that protesters in Ottawa were also beginning to arm themselves. The presence of firearms in the trucks was never confirmed by the police.