Far right social media personality Kevin J. Johnston was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border early Tuesday morning after failing to report to the Calgary Remand Centre to serve a court-ordered sentence.
According to information from the Calgary Police Service (CPS), the U.S. Border Patrol arrested Johnston, who had tried to cross from Saskatchewan to Montana on foot.
Johnston is being held in Plentywood, Mont. – immediately south of Regina, Sask. – before authorities return him to Calgary.
A statement from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said Plentywood Border Patrol agents were called in to assist the Sheridan County’s Sheriff’s Office “in searching for a subject who was lost near the Montana/North Dakota state line. A supervisory border patrol agent encountered a subject fitting the description of the lost subject wandering on foot.”
“The subject was questioned and found to be Kevin Johnston; a Canadian fugitive wanted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” the statement read. “Mr. Johnston is being processed and turned over to Canada Border Services Agency.”
Prior to his arrest by U.S. authorities, warrants for Johnston’s arrest were issued after CPS members were unable to locate him.
Johnston had not made an in-person appearance on his online broadcasts since Dec. 20, 2021. Throughout the pandemic, Johnston has been a vocal opponent of pandemic-related public health orders and has been arrested for organizing gatherings that broke those orders.
In a statement, Calgary police said Johnston failed to show up to the Calgary Remand Centre “as part of his intermittent sentence following a conviction for breaching several court orders for not complying with public health measures.”
This month, Johnston was due to finish serving a contempt of court sentence from an Alberta justice and begin serving an 18-month sentence after Ontario Superior Court Justice Frederick Myers found Johnston on contempt of court in October 2021, relating to a 2019 hate speech case.
Through 2021, Johnston unsuccessfully ran to be mayor in Calgary’s municipal election. In both 2014 and 2018, Johnston also ran for the mayor’s seat in Mississauga, Ont.