The leader of the anti-mask movement Mario Roy, convicted of twice blocking the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel during the pandemic, was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 months in home prison for his actions.
The Crown had requested a prison sentence of six months, while Mr. Roy offered to pay a fine of $5,000 in the form of a donation to a charity. He had pleaded that due to his physical and psychological state, a stay behind bars would break him: “If I go to prison, I don’t know how I will get out. »
Judge Jean-Jacques Gagné of the Court of Quebec instead opted for an incarceration sentence to be served in the community, a host of conditions to be respected and three donations of $1,000 each.
“Even if his regrets lack a little conviction,” declared the judge in a court room at the Montreal courthouse, he does not presently represent a danger to the community. He is therefore eligible for a prison sentence to be served at home, “even if there are few mitigating circumstances” in his case.
After blocking the tunnel for the first time in December 2020, Mario Roy did it again on March 13, 2021 with members of the anti-sanitary measures group Farfadaas.
Together, they participated in a major demonstration in Montreal to denounce the health measures imposed to counter the spread of COVID-19.
At trial, they testified that they witnessed police brutality that day. They claim to have then spontaneously decided to block the tunnel that connects Montreal to the South Shore with their vehicles to make a “stunt” and denounce the police.
Despite their explanations, Judge Gagné earlier this year found ex-Farfadaa Mario Roy guilty of mischief and conspiracy, as did two other participants, Steeve Charland and Karol Tardif.
The latter two got away with 120 hours of community service each, as well as one year’s probation.