Quebec’s “Militia Plot” and the Ghost of Coutts

In 2013, the RCMP stormed through High River during the flood evacuations, not to rescue citizens but to kick down doors and seize firearms from locked homes. No warrants. No accountability. They had done the same at a smaller scale two years earlier in Slave Lake, Alberta. Then in 2016, Fort McMurray residents returning from wildfire evacuation found forced entries and accusations flying, again at the hands of police claiming emergency necessity.

These weren’t isolated missteps. Now the federal cops are back in the headlines, claiming to have dismantled an armed anti-government militia in Quebec, complete with 83 firearms, 16 explosives, and vague talk of “seizing land.” But if history and the discredited charges against the Coutts Four have taught us anything, it’s this: we need evidence, not headlines. We need skepticism, not deference.

What We Were Told at Coutts

In 2022, the RCMP crafted a narrative at Coutts that a group of armed men, embedded in a border protest, were allegedly plotting to murder federal officers and overthrow law enforcement in the region. The press ran with it. There were photos of weapons, ammo counts, and extremist flags filling screens across the country.

But inside the courtroom, that theatre collapsed two years later. Two men were acquitted outright of conspiracy to murder. Charges for the other two were downgraded or dropped entirely after procedural abuses kept the accused imprisoned illegitimately.

The RCMP’s core theory that a rural protest was a staging ground for political violence was never proven.

The so-called plot was all supposition. The Mounties’ narrative had no substance: there was no plan, no timeline, no operational link between the protest and alleged conspirators. The guns? Lawfully owned by some. The bombs? Questionable chain of custody. The “radical group Diagolon”? Not a criminal organization, just a meme factory with questionable optics.

The federal case had relied not on proof of intent but on ideological guilt and optics. When confronted with objective evidentiary standards, the charges folded.

Quebec: The Same Playbook? Let’s apply the Coutts framework of RCMP failure to the emerging case of “a plot” in Quebec:

Weapons and Optics Over Intent: At Coutts, the RCMP flaunted thousands of rounds of ammunition and vague images of seized weapons. However, they could not prove that those items were intended for criminal use.

In Quebec, the RCMP boasts of 83 firearms and 16 explosive devices seized in January 2024. That’s a considerable number, but is it criminal? Not inherently. Rural Canadians can lawfully possess large arsenals. Explosives, too, can be legal in mining, farming, and construction sectors with proper documentation.

Unless police can show how these weapons were meant to be used unlawfully, this case could dissolve into Coutts déjà vu: scary numbers but zero context.

Ideology Doesn’t Equal Conspiracy: At Coutts, radical beliefs were painted as inherently dangerous. Flags, memes, and online chats became “evidence.” But the court found no plan, no strategy, and no criminal conspiracy existed.

Now in Quebec, we hear the suspects trained militarily, communicated on Instagram, and believed in creating an autonomous enclave. That’s eccentric, but eccentric isn’t illegal. Without clear statements of violent intent, belief in a self-sufficient commune, however odd, falls under protected expression.

Planning? Or Projection?: At Coutts, the RCMP projected violent motives onto protestors. But no wiretaps, no operational maps, no defined target list ever materialized. Just posturing seemingly to please their Ottawa bosses.

So far, the Quebec case hasn’t offered any tactical materials either: no countdowns, no mission notes, no intercepts; just a narrative about land seizure, militia, and rural extremism.

If we peel back the curtain and find no evidence of how or when this “land grab” was to happen, we’re back in Coutts territory: it was a projection, not prosecution.

Procedural Obfuscation: In the Coutts trials, the RCMP mishandled disclosure, delayed evidence, and overloaded the defence with late-stage document dumps. That nearly jeopardized the fairness of the trials.

In Quebec, reports suggest partial evidence disclosure so far. Hard drives were delivered to only some lawyers, and promises of more to come. If they’re frontloading public relations and backloading due process again, it’s not just bad practice, it’s strategic obfuscation.

Communications Failure… Again

Let’s not forget that in the middle of this Quebec investigation, RCMP Staff Sgt. Camille Habel told CBC that a shift toward “traditional values” might indicate radicalization. It wasn’t just tone-deaf; it was ideologically loaded and deeply irresponsible.

The RCMP later walked it back. But the instinct was telling. Their default suspicion now points toward cultural conservatism. Such sweeping assumptions should alarm every Canadian, whether you own a gun or not.

Don’t Buy the Story Until the Evidence Arrives

The RCMP may have finally built a real, legally sound domestic extremism case. But if so, let us wait to see them prove it in court. Not through press conferences. Not through scary photos. Not through media stenographers seeking to please the Brass.

We’ve seen this movie before. At Coutts, the RCMP built a conspiracy from scraps, only to watch it implode under basic scrutiny. If they’ve made the same moves in Quebec—exaggerating intent, conflating belief with action, and prioritizing narrative over facts—they’ll fail in court. And such failure will further erode public trust in a time when trust is already threadbare.

If that happens, it won’t just be a tactical error. It’ll be institutional suicide.