A judge sentenced the last of the Coutts, Alberta protesters on Monday to six-and-a-half years in prison for their role in a blockade that stopped traffic on the Canada-US border during the Freedom Convoy trucker protest against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Covid mandates.

Justice David Labrenz read the sentence as Anthony Olienick displayed no emotion while his co-defendant, Chris Carbert, “appeared glum and folded his arms,” according to CBC News. Because the two have been locked up since their arrest, Labrenz gave them nearly four years credit for jail time already served.

The sentence came as a surprise to many sitting in the courtroom, as Rebel News reporter Sheila Gunn Reid noted in an X post: “The crowd is gasping. Olienick's mother stares at the floor. No reaction from Carbert and Olienick.”

In August, a jury found Olienick and Carbert not guilty of conspiracy to murder police officers but the pair, known as the Coutts 2, were convicted on other charges of mischief and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. Olienick was also convicted of possessing a pipe bomb.

The blockade stopped traffic at the Alberta-Montana border for two weeks in February 2022. Labrenz lectured the two truckers about taking the law into their own hands. "Both Olienick and Carbert used the blockade as a last stand against police." [They] knew they were actively participating in something that was illegal, but they didn't care because they thought their cause had been worthy," according to RCI Radio Canada. Olienick and Carbert have been in custody since their arrest in February 2022.

Gord Magill of the Autonomous Truckers posted on X: “The fight for Chris Carbert and Tony Olienick is not over. What transpired today was an example of gross judicial misconduct, which follows a political prisoner situation that is unbecoming a modern western nation state.”

The four were arrested on Feb. 14, 2022, the day that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the infamous Emergencies Act to suppress the anti-mandate protests, after the RCMP claimed to link a cache of weapons – which was not found at the blockade site – with the Coutts blockade.

The sentence could affect the trial of Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, whose own trial for mischief has just crossed the one-year mark. They cannot expect a verdict until early 2025, as The Post Millennial has reported.

In a passionate conclusion to his summation at the trial, defense counsel Lawrence Greenspon said “it would be wrong to criminalize [their] behavior in these unique circumstances.”

“I want to recite the words from Benjamin Franklin, who said that ‘those who would sacrifice essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,’” Greenspon said, noting that Canada has sacrificed the liberty of other groups in history and ultimately apologized for violating “Constitutionally entrenched and protected fundamental freedoms.”