Convoy leader Pat King heads to trial
One of the most polarizing figures to gain notoriety during what became known as the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa more than two years ago will stand trial Monday, sig‐ nalling the tail end of crim‐ inal proceedings that have dogged hundreds of indi‐ viduals who participated in the historic protest.
Pat King, from Red Deer, Alta., is facing charges of mis‐ chief, intimidation, obstruct‐ ing police, disobeying a court order and other offences for his role in the protest that gridlocked downtown for nearly a month in early 2022.
Arrested and jailed for five months before his release that summer, King is unlikely to serve more time behind bars if he is found guilty, giv‐ en laws around credit from time served.
Like other prominent con‐ voy leaders, King's trial is ex‐ pected to draw a sizeable crowd outside the Ottawa Courthouse.
But unlike the trials of Tamara Lich and Chris Bar‐ ber, King's defence won't be bankrolled by The Democ‐ racy Fund or the Justice Cen‐ tre for Constitutional Free‐ doms - both well-mobilized entities with deep ties to lib‐ ertarian and right-wing back‐ ers.
Similarly, many of the con‐ voy supporters and even some of the original core or‐ ganizers who once shouted slogans against vaccine man‐ dates alongside King have abandoned or distanced themselves from the 46-yearold, who is known for making incendiary remarks.
He knows all this, perhaps better than anyone else.
"I'm about to go into the fight of my life," he told his social media audience on April 29.
Left to defend himself
King, who was granted per‐ mission to livestream online for fundraising purposes, ad‐ mitted to supporters in that final video before he trav‐ elled to Ottawa that he's looking forward to the end of the legal ordeal so he could return to some normalcy.
"It's been hard," he told supporters.
A day later he posted on Facebook: "My lawyer just contacted me that we are sit‐ ting at 9037$ in donations just from last night . I cannot thank you enough wrote.
Without financial backing from any major advocacy group, King has had to raise money mostly on his own, hosting events both in Alber‐ ta and Ontario.
Prior to his most recent fundraiser in early May, he said he was around $60,000 short of his goal. But King is hardly alone in his fight.
On Facebook alone, King still draws 339,000 followers, posting videos from events including a highly publicized one featuring Alberta pre‐ mier Danielle Smith and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in Calgary earlier this year.
An early organizer !" he
King was brought in as an early planner of the Freedom Convoy, conceived by an adhoc group that connected online as a protest against vaccine mandates, in January 2022.
He had, after all, been in‐ volved in an earlier convoy to Ottawa. In 2019, he helped organize the United We Roll movement in support of Canada's oil and gas sector.
Inspired by protests in France over rising fuel costs, that event only attracted a few hundred people. But it set the stage for some of the challenges organizers of the Freedom Convoy would eventually encounter - no‐ tably, how the main message was quickly diluted by others vying for the microphone.
Like the much bigger lock‐ down of Ottawa in 2022, they included calls to arrest Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as racist sentiments.
King made headlines al‐ most immediately when thousands of truckers and protesters started rallying to head to Ottawa. His online fame soared, buoyed by his antics in Red Deer where he criticized COVID-19 mandates and protested against an an‐ ti-racism rally.
Various fundraisers launched in support of the Freedom Convoy received millions of dollars in pledges before they were shut down by the online platform hosting them.
One such effort, known as "Adopt-A-Trucker," was launched on Jan. 18, 2022. It was described as being "en‐ dorsed" by King, a testament to the weight his name car‐ ried among sympathizers.
He was also listed as a "road captain" for Alberta truckers.
King's sizeable online au‐ dience, his experience orga‐ nizing protests and his bom‐ bastic live feeds as he trav‐ elled to Ottawa quickly turned him into a key figure of the protests.
His online presence be‐ came a must-watch for any‐ one keeping tabs on the con‐ voy, and he used his influ‐ ence to help coordinate demonstrations including a "slow roll" at the Ottawa In‐ ternational Airport.
Old videos resurface
Sensing his unpredictability and tendency to attract nega‐ tive attention, however, Lich, Barber and others sought to distance themselves from
King as the weeks-long protest continued. News media scrambled to deter‐ mine who best represented the movement as competing voices vied for clout and credit.
As the public's attention on King intensified, some of his old videos resurfaced.
Snippets showed King mocking specific ethnicities, talking about the Anglo-Sax‐ on race "being one of the strongest bloodlines," and warning: "Trudeau, someone is going to make you catch a bullet one day."
He has long maintained the videos were spliced and edited to make him look bad.
But his statements spread, furthering the idea that the Freedom Convoy was less about vaccine man‐ dates and more a protest conceived and promoted by far-right characters.
King's controversial state‐ ments gained a national au‐ dience when CBC's The Fifth Estate aired an interview with King. King went ahead with the interview against the ad‐ vice of Lich, Barber and oth‐ ers involved in organizing the protest.
But even before that, oth‐ er organizers had raised con‐ cerns about King.
According to evidence presented at the Public Or‐ der Emergency Commission (POEC), which looked into the federal government's deci‐ sion to use the Emergencies Act to break up the protest, Lich and Barber discussed trying to send King home even before the convoy's ar‐ rival in Ottawa.
By Jan. 26, concerns about his involvement were great enough to prompt more dis‐ cussion about sending him home. King wouldn't end up returning to Alberta until sev‐ eral months later, however.
After cycling through lawyers, he was released in July 2022 and met by chants of "freedom" outside the Ot‐ tawa Courthouse. Conditions of his release included no more protesting or public as‐ sembly specifically related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Freedom Convoy or anti-gov‐ ernment demonstrations.
King's lawyer Natasha Calvinho later argued her client was too "notorious" to be tried in Ottawa and said King "was and still is more highly publicized than most other people involved in the Freedom Convoy."
The request to move his trial elsewhere was denied. He will face the judge alone in Ottawa.
Co-accused pleaded guilty, released
King was arrested while livestreaming on Feb. 18, 2022, and charged alongside his sidekick Tyson "Freedom George" Billings, who was of‐ ten seen with King.
They were charged with two counts each of intimida‐ tion and obstructing police, and one count each of mis‐ chief, counselling to commit mischief, counselling to ob‐ struct police, counselling in‐ timidation, disobeying a court order and counselling to disobey a court order.
Billings pleaded guilty and was released from jail in June 2022. He pleaded guilty to one count of counselling to commit mischief, but the oth‐ er charges were withdrawn.
Sentenced to six months of probation, he returned to his home in High Prairie, Al‐ ta., and has since continued to take part in convoy-adja‐ cent protests.
King stayed in jail, service 150 days in all, telling his supporters privately he would fight his charges, and picking up more along the way.
Now, his opportunity has arrived.
"My heart and soul tell me that we will be victorious," he told supporters in his final video.
The trial is expected to sit for nine days, then break be‐ fore a final week in mid-July.