A security expert who has been keeping an eye on protests and extremism in Alberta for more than a decade is raising the alarm on an apparent lack of action from the provincial government.
His comments follow an RCMP seizure of a weapons cache at the Coutts border blockade earlier this week that resulted in charges including conspiracy to murder, and the beginning of dismantling of the Coutts border blockade as a means to distance itself from those arrested.
“If the government of Alberta thinks that the protest is over and the threat is gone, then they’re more naive than I even thought,” Neil LeMay, a senior consultant with Global Enterprise Security Risk Management, said.
LeMay said the government’s repeating of claims the protests were over pandemic-related mandates was “dangerously naive.”
“That’s just a smokescreen, and the fact that the government has bought into that and repeats that over and over again is troubling for me because it suggests that they really don’t understand what’s going on here in the province.”
Thirteen people taking part in the Coutts blockade were arrested and charged with weapons and mischief charges – with four of them facing conspiracy to murder charges – after an early morning raid revealed numerous long guns, handguns, high-capacity magazines, ammunition and body armour. Some of that body armour was adorned with symbols associated with far-right groups.
Recent events show the ability and willingness of the far-right to organize on a mass scale, according to a national security researcher.
Kayla Preston, a PhD student at the University of Toronto who has worked with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, pointed to the willingness of some protesters to allegedly bring arms to a protest and the economic damage protests across the country have been able to do in less than a month.
“We saw these major protests that blocked major economic routes in Canada, which has crippled some parts of the economy in Canada in some major places. We have tens of millions of dollars of trade stalled at the border that is now only flowing in places like Alberta and Manitoba, and we saw on the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit.
“So the security threat there in the economy is prevalent.”
LeMay said his security firm had received intelligence that airports could be targeted next, adding the federal government has also identified the same potential threat.
Federal Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino warned against taking the actions of protesters too lightly.
“We need to be clear-eyed about the seriousness of these incidents. Indeed, several of the individuals at Coutts have strong ties to a far-right extreme organization with leaders who are in Ottawa,” Mendicino said.
“We’re talking about a group that is organized, agile, knowledgeable and driven by an extremist ideology where might makes right. And this is completely contrary to our democratic values.”
LeMay, who has more than three decades experience in policing and security, said the more extreme elements in the protests, blockades and occupations are emboldened following recent government response.
“They cannot believe how wildly successful this has been and how the government has been stumbling over each other to not address this issue for reasons that only they can explain,” LeMay said.
Earlier this week, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, targeting financial mechanisms supporting the protests. Border blockades in Alberta and Manitoba were dismantled shortly after.
Last week, acting Justice Minister and Solicitor General Sonya Savage said the province was not planning on applying for a court injunction for the border barricade, but similar injunctions were granted for Ottawa and Ontario’s Ambassador Bridge.
LeMay said the province can do more for future extremist protests, pointing to the province’s Emergency Management Act as a “force multiplier” to address the increasingly emboldened extremist elements in society.
“It allows a smaller number of police officers and law enforcement officers to effectively deal with the situation in a much, much quicker time,” LeMay told Global News. “The government seems to have missed that important piece of the legislation.”
He also said the act combined with the province’s counterterrorism and crisis management plan are proactive measures the province can take, rather than the apparently reactive approach so far.
“This will allow police to get out ahead of these individuals,” LeMay said. “It will reduce the number of police officers we have to dedicate to this project significantly.”
RCMP Chief Supt. Trevor Daroux said investigations into the arrested individuals and their connections with far-right extremist groups are ongoing.
“These are all avenues that we will be looking at and looking at them from several angles,” Daroux said Tuesday.
Preston expects details from the investigations could result in domestic terrorist charges or be “spoken about during prosecution.”
She acknowledged far-right elements have been a consistent part of Canada’s history, but recent events have shed a new light on the threats those elements currently pose to society.
“Both provincial and federal governments, and enforcement such as the RCMP will need to go back to the drawing board and re-envision how they see security threats in Canada and how they are going to deal with these going forward.”
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