OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian appeals court overturned an earlier acquittal of intimidation against prominent Freedom Convoy protester and leader Pat King, saying that his earlier sentence was a “lenient penalty” and has thus ordered him to appear for new sentencing.
In a July 17 ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal convicted King after prosecutors appealed one of his acquittals. They argued that King’s sentence given in early 2025 wasn’t severe enough.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, in February of 2025, King was handed a three-month conditional sentence for his role in the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates of all forms. He was found guilty of a total of five offences in 2024, which included mischief, counselling mischief, as well as breaching a court order.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland had ruled that King must serve three additional months of house arrest and dedicate 100 hours to community service for his role in the Freedom Convoy. His original sentence would have been 12 months, but the court gave him credit for time served in jail before his trial.
King had used social media to organize protests of truckers in Ottawa in early 2022, in protest of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s COVID dictates.
While he was acquitted of three intimidation charges, the government Crown lawyers appealed one of the acquittals, which found King innocent of intimidation after he had obstructed a highway. The appeals court agreed with the Crown’s ask.
“The freedom to protest does not include the right to engage in illegal conduct, and this protest evolved into what can fairly be described as an illegal occupation of a significant tract of downtown Ottawa,” wrote the three-judge panel.
“Put simply, criminal conduct is not less criminal because it occurs during a lawful protest.”
The appeals court added that his original 2024 sentence was a “lenient penalty” and a stronger penalty was needed to send a message.
In 2022, King was granted bail after spending five months in jail for his involvement with the protests. He had to pay a $25,000 fine and was banned from speaking to other Freedom Convoy members and was placed under curfew.
In February 2022, during the height of the Freedom Convoy, King told protesters to “Hold the line, ladies and gentlemen” and to “not back down, we got your backs.”
In late February that same year, King was denied bail by a judge. He was arrested on February 18 and was charged with various offenses, including mischief and counseling to commit mischief.
In early 2022, thousands of Canadians from coast to coast came to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s government invoked the Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14. Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.
The EA controversially allowed the government to freeze the bank accounts of protesters, conscript tow truck drivers, and arrest people for participating in assemblies that the government deemed illegal.
COVID shot mandates, which also came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, including in children.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in January, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal affirmed in a ruling that Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act was illegal.
In essence, the appeals court upheld a 2024 ruling by Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley that Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act was “not justified.”
Despite this, the Canadian government will appeal the decision.