'I'm sorry, God': Accused in Coutts trial cried when told border protest disbanded
Anthony Olienick told police the blockade was started as a stand against a takeover of Canadian freedoms by tyrants, including UN troops and Chinese communists
LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — Anthony Olienick, sitting alone in an empty police interrogation room, breaks down in tears when he learns the COVID-19 protest blockade at Coutts, Alta., has disbanded in part because of his arrest.
“I’m sorry, God,” Olienick says to the four walls, in a video played for jurors Wednesday at his murder-conspiracy trial.
In the 2022 video, Olienick tells police he and others formed the blockade at the busy Canada-U.S. border crossing to take a stand against a takeover of Canadian freedoms by tyrants, including United Nations troops and Chinese communists.
“We’re just trying to be protectors. That’s all,” says Olienick.
“We’ve seen it all over the world … governments do bad things.”
Olienick and fellow protester Chris Carbert are on trial in Lethbridge, Alta., charged with conspiring to kill Mounties at the blockade.
The two men were arrested after RCMP found a cache of guns, body armour and ammunition in trailers in Coutts.
In the video, Olienick tells police there was no plan to attack, and the guns were only for defence.
“We’re just protecting the flock. That’s all I wanted,” he says.
“We’re the sheepdogs in case of something going bad.”
Olienick rejects the allegation he would threaten officers, but qualifies it by saying, “unless you guys are shooting at us first.”
“But it wouldn’t be you guys,” he adds. “It would be UN guys or Chinese.”
Earlier in the interview, Olienick expresses concern about Canada being taken over by a communist regime.
The blockade tied up traffic at the Coutts border crossing for two weeks, part of a nationwide backlash against pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates seen as unnecessary and punitive.
The blockade ended when convoy leader Marco Van Huigenbos announced that because of the arrests and gun seizures the blockade would wrap up immediately and peacefully.
When police convey this to Olienick in the video, he appears devastated.
“I am so heartbroken. That was never our intention,” he says. “That’s not the outcome that we wanted.”
“I want to defend myself against some tyranny, and that’s it.
“I’m not going to be the first guy who’s going to do it. I’m going to be the guy that’s going to end it if it happens.”
Undercover officers have testified Olienick told them police were pawns of the federal government and that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the devil. Police should be hanged, he said, and if officers raided the blockade he would “slit their throats.”
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