{"id":809842,"date":"2026-07-18T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T10:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/809842\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T10:00:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T10:00:35","slug":"ontario-appeal-court-finds-convoy-organizer-pat-king-guilty-of-intimidation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/809842\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario appeal court finds convoy organizer Pat King guilty of intimidation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Pat King leaves a sentencing hearing for fellow convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber at the courthouse in Ottawa, in October, 2025.Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The Ontario Court of Appeal has found \u201cFreedom Convoy\u201d organizer Pat King guilty of intimidation and has ordered a new sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n

King was charged with a number of offences for his leading role in the February 2022 demonstration that gridlocked much of downtown Ottawa for more than three weeks.<\/p>\n

The protesters used hundreds of vehicles, including big rig trucks, to choke the city streets and blasted horns at all hours. Some residents later testified at a federal inquiry that they were afraid to leave their homes and had trouble sleeping.<\/p>\n

The demonstrators were loosely organized, with many opposed to government COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and to the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau. Some participants said they wanted to overthrow the government.<\/p>\n

The protest eventually ended after Trudeau invoked the federal Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history, granting extraordinary powers to government and police to remove the vehicles and shut down the demonstration.<\/p>\n

King was convicted in November 2024 of five counts, including mischief, counselling mischief and disobeying a court order.<\/p>\n

He was given a 12-month conditional sentence, which included nine months of time served and three months\u2019 house arrest with a year of probation.<\/p>\n

Three-month sentence for King falls short of 10 years sought by Crown<\/a><\/p>\n

At the same trial, King was acquitted on three counts of intimidation. The Crown appealed the acquittal on one count of intimidation for blocking or obstructing a highway. The Crown also argued that King had been given an unusually lenient sentence in the original trial.<\/p>\n

The Appeal Court found the trial judge erred in law by finding that King\u2019s participation in the \u201cFreedom Convoy\u201d was part of a lawful protest. <\/p>\n

\u201cPut simply, criminal conduct is not less criminal because it occurs during a lawful protest,\u201d the panel of three judges wrote in the decision, released on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Appeal Court ruling said King should have been found guilty of intimidation through a correct application of the law, and convicted him. <\/p>\n

The court has ordered a sentencing hearing to take place at a later date. <\/p>\n

The judges wrote that King\u2019s initial sentence was a \u201clenient penalty\u201d and noted the trial judge was concerned that imposing a harsh sentence could create a chilling effect on participation in political protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not a peaceful protest that \u2018unfortunately grew out of control and was allowed to go on and on and morphed into criminal activity,\u2019 as the trial judge suggested in his sentencing reasons,\u201d the decision said. <\/p>\n

\u201cRather, this was, from the outset, a co-ordinated, targeted attack on Ottawa residents aimed at coercing change through highly disruptive criminal conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Pat King leaves a sentencing hearing for fellow convoy organizers Tamara Lich and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-809842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}