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MILK RIVER, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) — On the evening of Friday, February 4, a misleading public post was made on the Coutts Facebook group (which has 80k followers) that said that the Coutts, Alberta border truckers were leaving Coutts and heading to Edmonton, that deals had been made with Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), and that all the mandates would be dropped by Monday (today).
When I tried to get the group admin to take the post down, he told me that he was one of the truckers who left Coutts on Thursday and drove to central Alberta to meet with 3 MLAs. He said that they had “made a deal,” and he was now on his way back to Coutts to tell the other guys to pack up. I knew that he was acting on his own because I had spoken to the organizers and there were no MLA meetings. I challenged him, but he refused to take down his post or to edit it because, he said, it was the truth. It is not the truth because MLAs can’t make deals. I knew then that the Facebook group was completely compromised since he has full control over what is posted in it.
When I called the organizers afterwards, they said that these 3 to 5 truckers had acted without the group’s consensus and that they were no longer welcome in Coutts. Therefore, they had left.
I spent the weekend in Milk River having meetings with all the border protest coordinators on the ground. On Sunday morning, I hastily threw up a new FB page called Official Coutts/Milk River Border Protest but didn’t make any posts because I got called away from my phone. I came back a few hours to notice that a trucker had posted a similar message on my new group page, the same misleading message as Friday’s: the truckers at Coutts were leaving for Edmonton and deals had been made for Monday.
I knew that I had to track down this lead. I called him, and he told me that there was a tip from a government employee that a group of Antifa members were nearby and would hit early Monday morning. I told him that he needed to call the RCMP. He was mumbling in response, but it sounded like he was saying that the tip came from inside the RCMP.
He said I could meet him. I finished my meetings at Milk River Protest and met him in town, only to find myself in a meeting with an MLA and 4 other truckers. It became clear to me that they were trying to use me to turn the Coutts truckers.
I did not tell them that in my twenties, I had worked in the government, that I was an investigator for serious child abuse (predominantly sex crimes), and that I have crisis negotiation training from the RCMP. Nor did I tell them that I am a trained relationship counsellor, and I’m very good at reading people. I went in and played dumb. They were so busy telling me that they could not get arrested with the Coutts truckers that they failed to notice how I was reading them through what they weren’t saying.
They told me over and over that the lanes at the border protest were closed and that the Coutts truckers were lying to me. I asked if they had proof, and they got angry at me. They told me that I didn’t need proof because it was their word. I told them that I needed to see evidence or else I couldn’t trust what they were saying. The MLA then jumped up, in a raised voice accused me of “ruining everything,” and stormed out of the restaurant in front of a dozen patrons. All the truckers there got up and angrily left, telling me that I ruined their deal. A friend of mine was at the restaurant, 3 tables over, and watched the entire thing: he was shocked at how loud and angry the voices directed at me were.
As it turns out, Shane Getson, MLA for Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland, does not do well in confrontation. He is probably under a lot of pressure from his boss Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to make the Border Protest go away. He and the other 3 MLAs from the central Alberta area who met with these truckers, obviously reached out to them and tried to cut them a deal. The truckers were scared of the repercussions, but I think the MLAs were playing on their fear and threatening them with something. After they left me at the restaurant, I called the leader at Coutts and asked him to send me a real-time video of the lanes so that I could confirm that they were open. He did, and the video contradicted the story the lanes were still closed and that’s why deals had to be made immediately. (video below)
I don’t think the truckers who made the deals are bad guys; I know politics quite well, and I also know that the typical MLA will throw their weight around and lie without remorse. I have no ill will towards the truckers who met with them, the ones who left Coutts to make the deals with politicians. I think they are good, kind men who care about their families and their communities. I also think they were beyond stressed out, and they just got scared. When emotions are high, bad decisions are made. In fact, politicians and police officers count on it. I wish the truckers all the best. But the MLAs who were offering deals, making threats, and scaring these truckers out of their minds? Not so much.
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