Border protests in Coutts, Alta., a 'concrete manifestation' of risk to Canada: Rouleau

Events that transpired during a 17-day protest near the border town of Coutts, Alta., were central to Justice Paul Rouleau's determination that the federal government had met the threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act.

"The situation in [Coutts was] a concrete manifestation of the very risk that had been identified to Cabinet: a highly disruptive, but mainly peaceful protest that included a smaller group of actors who allegedly intended to effect serious violence for a political purpose," Rouleau wrote in his executive summary, which was tabled Friday in the House of Commons. 

Rouleau wrote that the blockade at the Coutts port of entry was notable for its duration, complexity and volatility, and for the dramatic way it was resolved.

Coutts is a town of just over 200 people about 100 kilometres southeast of Lethbridge, on the border with Montana.

Though Rouleau wrote that many of the protests across Canada, including in Coutts, may have been intended to have been peaceful, the situation "escaped their control."

According to Rouleau's report, the RCMP had grown concerned about the possible presence of firearms within the group near the border town as early as Jan. 31, 2022. They investigated, without success, reports of a protester with a gun, and obtained new information about a possible cache of weapons on Feb. 9.

A wiretap authorization was granted on Feb. 11, and on Feb. 13, they obtained a search warrant and searched a motorhome and two trailers, as well as Smuggler's Saloon, where protesters had been gathering.

During the inquiry, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the head of the RCMP shared with him sensitive police information on Feb. 13, the day before the act was invoked.

"She underlined, for me, that the situation in Coutts involved a hardened cell of individuals armed to the teeth with lethal firearms, who possessed a willingness to go down with the cause," Mendicino said of his conversation with Commissioner Brenda Lucki.

WATCH: Lucki warned Mendicino that Alberta border blockade could turn violent: 

RCMP uncovered a cache of weapons, body armour and ammunition. Allegations of a conspiracy to murder police officers followed. On Feb. 14, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the government would be invoking the act, saying that the measures would be "reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address."

"The fact that this situation was discovered and disrupted is a credit to law enforcement," wrote Rouleau. "It was, nevertheless, clearly a situation that could reasonably be viewed as meeting the definition [of a threat to the security of Canada under CSIS], but that CSIS had not identified as such." 

Cabinet could "reasonably consider" that the risk of similar groups of politically or ideologically motivated violent actors could have been present at other protests, Rouleau wrote.

Rouleau found "the most troubling connection between protest locations" was the presence of Diagolon members in both Ottawa and Coutts.