The RCMP has handed Alberta rancher Ty Northcott three summonses for holding the No More Lockdowns Rodeo, near Bowden.

An RCMP officer served Northcott, and his wife Gail, with the summons on Monday afternoon at the gate of his ranch.

The pair have been ordered to appear in court in Red Deer on May 17 to face the Public Health Act charges.

Northcott told the Western Standard he intends to plead not guilty.

“The sooner we can get our day in court the better. We want to challenge Dr. (Deena) Hinshaw and (Premier) Jason Kenney on their draconian measures.  We want to prove them to be the tyrants they are,” said Northcott.

Northcott is being represented by lawyers James Kitchen, of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) and lawyer and local Rancher Dan Harder, from Olds.

Northcott is the latest COVID-19 protest organizer to face the wrath of the authorites.

On Saturday, the owner of the Whistle Stop Cafe, in Mirror, Chris Scott was handcuffed by RCMP and hauled away after 1,500 people went to a protest on his property. In Calgary the same day, Pastor Artrur Pawlowski was pulled over and arrested in the middle of 17 Ave. S.E. for continuing to hold packed church services.

Another Alberta pastor, James Coates, was jailed for a month and is currently before the court on the same charge.

The No More Lockdowns Rodeo was held over two days on the May 1 weekend on the Northcott land, south of Bowden.

Coming from a historic Alberta ranching family, Northcott’s livestock business has been crippled by successive provincial lockdowns.

More than 4,000 people attended the event which featured a full rodeo and speakers slamming the lockdowns.

Kenney called the rodeo, attended by about 4,000 people, “disturbing.”

In a closed-door UCP caucus meeting, Kenney said in reference to the attendees of the rodeo, “If they are our base, I want a new base.”

And at the end of a Facebook town hall on May 4, Kenney lashed out at rodeo organizer Ty Northcott for some of his social media postings.

“They said ‘We will not stand by idly and watch, as not only our businesses, but our Western heritage, and more importantly, our basic human rights are ripped out of existence by the tyrannical beings of our current world.’ The tyrannical beings? Not even human beings, the tyrannical beings of the current world.

“What the heck does that mean. I mean are these people, is that now merging with …Lizard Man conspiracies. I’m one of the tyrannical beings of the current world? What does that…so I said to my caucus, people who are making death threats against me and members of my family and are talking about the tyrannical beings that have taken over the world. They’re not my base. They’re not Alberta conservatives. They’re not mainstream Albertans. They are people who need to cut way back on caffeine, take off the tinfoil hat and come back to reality.

Nadine Wellwood is a Western Standard correspondent

Despite an unprecedented court injunction outlawing protests, the Whistle Stop Café saw 1,500 Albertans come out in support of owner Chris Scott over the weekend. The spark moving Scott from merely refusing to close his café, to protesting, was a move by the Alberta government to seize his private property. It was a decision that left him and his family without an income or livelihood.  

Outlawing protests on private property, arresting peaceful demonstrators, and anonymous identities of court prosecutors. Welcome to the ‘new’ Canada, and the Alberta government’s enthusiastic embrace of it.

John Carpay of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom warns, “By way of this injunction, Alberta Health Services now has the court acting as a police force, rather than as the protector of citizens’ Charter rights and freedoms.”

The severe reactions and responses of the political class toward peaceful demonstrators exercising their protected Charter freedoms shows a lack of empathy for their plight, and a disregard for ancient rights. 

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley delights in the actions taken by the RCMP arrests this weekend, tweeting “Finally, some enforcement of the public health laws … why did it take so long?”

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi believes those who protest lockdowns are “thinly veiled white nationalists.” 

And Alberta Premier Jason Kenney dismisses legitimate questions, calling protestors “unhinged conspiracy theorists.”  

In The Law, Frederick Bastiat writes, “Individuality, liberty, property – this is man.  And in spite of the cunning and artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.  

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws.  On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

Governments do not grant rights and freedoms. Government itself is a creation of man for the sole legitimate purpose of protecting the individual rights and freedoms of its citizens.

Alberta’s ‘artful and cunning political leaders’ instead reject freedom as a superfluous nicety, and have embraced authoritarianism. 

Jason Kenney was elected premier in 2019 on a platform titled ‘Strong and Free’, dedicated to core conservative values. But when challenged to uphold these values by the voters who put him in the premier’s office, he “wants a new base.”

There is a growing anger and sense of betrayal amongst Albertans toward the Kenney administration, as evidenced over the last two weekends. The harder Kenney demands these individuals comply, the more they are willing to push back.

Henry David Thoreau, in his essay Civil Disobedience, wrote, “The right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. Must the citizen resign his conscience to the legislator? A people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may.” 

The government itself is equally liable to be abused and perverted. This weekend’s events are undeniable evidence of government abuse and the perversion of the law.

Mr. John Carpay wrote before the arrest of Scott, “Rather than relying on regular law enforcement, it’s far more effective, and far more efficient, to terrorize Albertans with an injunction like that issued by Justice Rooke on May 6, which leaves citizens unable to assert their Charter freedoms upon being arrested and imprisoned.”

The arrest of a small business owner, two pastors, and a multitude of fines issued to those defending their Charter protected rights and freedoms, is not freedom. It is authoritarianism. 

In The Law, Bastiat continued, “Socialists desire to practice ‘legal plunder’ and to make the law their weapon.  When socialism enters law, it does not fear courts or your prisons … in fact, it calls upon them for help. The choices that lay before us:

1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody.” 

For all his rhetoric of a “strong and free” Alberta, premier Kenney has embarked on a dangerous path that is in direct confrontation with the values of a majority of Albertans. The more he tightens his grip, the more control will slip between his fingers. 

Nadine Wellwood is a Correspondent for the Western Standard