Associate of Soldiers of Odin in Saskatchewan Found Guilty of Uttering Threats Directed at Prime Minister

To be fair, the Saskatchewan Chapter of the SoO is now seemingly defunct, but that is neither here nor there.

Near the beginning of August we reported that Christopher Hayes of Grayson, Saskatchewan had been arrested for uttering threats directed towards Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Christopher was at the time a member of at least one SoO Facebook group:

His brother "MJohn Hayes" was, also at the time, the Oxbow president of the SoO:

Not long after, we posted a few follow-up articles that our readers could view here:

• Soldier of Odin Member Christopher Hayes Update 1
• Soldier of Odin Member Christopher Hayes Update 2

Today, we learned that Christopher Hayes has been found guilty of uttering threats:

Leading up to Hayes' arrest, police received two complaints about posts he had made on Facebook in relation to the prime minister. The RCMP's National Security Enforcement Section investigated the complaints. 

One of the two posts was read out during sentencing in provincial court on Feb. 13.
Hayes was found guilty of uttering threats and faces nine months of probation. Part of the probation stipulates that Hayes is not to attend events where the prime minister is present. 

He is also prohibited from owning or shooting any firearm or crossbow for the next five years, is not allowed to own ammunition or explosives, and is subject to a $500 fine.

Now, while we are pleased that this individual has faced the consequences for his criminal actions, at least to some degree, there are many others who seem to make threats with impunity.

An article came out in the "National Post" noted that other politicians in the country, particularly Rachel Notley, have been facing an almost continuous barrage of threats to kill, rape, or otherwise harm them:

The statistics show that from 2003 to 2015 — a period that saw six different premiers — Alberta sheriffs recorded a total of 55 security incidents involving the premier. 

Nineteen of those came in the last half of 2015, which happened to be Premier Rachel Notley’s first months in office. At least three of those incidents required police intervention. 

Then in 2016, protection services changed its process of reviewing and monitoring security threats, in part to include more surveillance of social media. That year, there were 412 reported incidents involving Notley, 26 of which were forwarded to police as they were deemed to have approached a criminal threshold.

We've seen a significant uptick in threats directed towards Canadian politicians as well, especially women who seem to be bearing the brunt of much of the online vitriol. Christopher Hayes in fact did not only seem to threaten Mr. Trudeau, but Ms. Notley as well in many of his posts:

Others have noticed this trend as well.

"Canadian Cynic" who if our readers don't follow on Twitter we would recommend that they do, has been collecting comments left on Ezra Levant's "The Rebel" comments sections that appear to directly threaten Ms. Notely, Ms. Wynne, and a number of other women in Canadian politics. These comments, made months ago, remain on "The Rebel" website:

We have to assume that Ezra is perfectly fine with having these threats directed towards women on his website since, at least as of today, they are still present on "The Rebel."

Of course there's no need to worry, right?

I mean, overheated and violent political discourse targeting an identifiable group and encouraged by cynical assholes who stoke such anger for their own ideological (and usually economic) ends has never resulted in tragedy in history.

Or maybe not?