Saskatchewan man guilty of threatening Trudeau on Facebook

A Saskatchewan man has been found guilty of uttering threats against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after posting expletive-laden posts on Facebook saying Trudeau should be shot.

Christopher Hayes, 41, was fined $500 and given nine months of probation, which includes a ban on attending events with Trudeau. He is also prohibited from owning firearms for three years.

In a Facebook post on March 6, 2016, Hayes wrote: “Imma buot to go shoot this mother (expletive) dead.”

“And if the Canadian liberal voters won’t stand up for all fn Canadians and demand better conduct by the Trudeau government I’ll cut off the head if the snake myself and go down in the history books as the man who saves Canada,” the post continued.

On July 8, 2016, Hayes posted: “Am I going to kill JT? Nope. Physically harm the guy? Nope. I do think however he should be shot dead .... and I would personally thank the person who did kill him.”

The defence argued that Hayes did not intend to utter a threat, but only to express an opinion. It said considering the context in which the words were written and posted, a reasonable person would not find them to be a threat to cause the death of the prime minister.

Provincial court Judge Ross Green disagreed.

“I accept that Mr. Hayes did not intend to kill the prime minister and I further accept that he was frustrated by the economic problems he was facing when he made the posts on Facebook,” Green said in a written statement.

“But ... I am satisfied that he intended the threatening words he used in both of his posts, regarding causing death to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to intimidate and to be taken seriously.”

Court heard that the RCMP interviewed Hayes in April 2016, after seeing the first post, and Hayes said he wrote it out of frustration.

He claimed he was not a violent person, but said he had been working in the oilfield for 20 years and that Trudeau doesn’t care about the oilfield. Hayes said that he’d had a few drinks, was playing online video games and talking politics with his oil industry buddies at the time.