Convoy organizer Pat King guilty of intimidation, Appeal Court rules

OTTAWA — The Ontario Court of Appeal has found “Freedom Convoy” organizer Pat King guilty of intimidation and has ordered a new sentencing hearing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

King was convicted in November 2024 of five counts, including mischief, counselling mischief and disobeying a court order.

He was given a 12-month conditional sentence, which included nine months of time served and three months’ house arrest with a year of probation.

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.

The Appeal Court found the trial judge erred in law by finding that King’s participation in the “Freedom Convoy” was part of a lawful protest.

“Put simply, criminal conduct is not less criminal because it occurs during a lawful protest,” the panel of three judges wrote in the decision, released on Friday.

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

The court has ordered a sentencing hearing to take place at a later date.

The judges wrote that King’s initial sentence was a “lenient penalty” and noted the trial judge was concerned that imposing a harsh sentence could create a chilling effect on participation in political protests.

“This was not a peaceful protest that ‘unfortunately grew out of control and was allowed to go on and on and morphed into criminal activity,’ as the trial judge suggested in his sentencing reasons,” the decision said.

“Rather, this was, from the outset, a co-ordinated, targeted attack on Ottawa residents aimed at coercing change through highly disruptive criminal conduct.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2026.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press