Armed man arrested after ramming truck through gate at PM’s residence,
National security team will investigate reservist arrested at PM’s home
The RCMP has called in a specialized national security team to investigate a Canadian Forces reservist who was arrested Thursday on the grounds of Rideau Hall.
Crown prosecutors charged Corey Hurren, 46, of Bowsman, Man., with 22 criminal offences, including misuse of restricted and prohibited weapons, and uttering threats.
Hurren made a brief court appearance on Friday afternoon, and was remanded in custody until his next appearance on July 17. His lawyer, Michael Davies, did not reply to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
Hurren was arrested after the RCMP said a man crashed a pickup truck through a pedestrian gate into the grounds of Rideau Hall at around 6:30 a.m. Thursday. The armed man then made his way on foot to a greenhouse on the property, where he was confronted by police and surrendered after a nearly two-hour discussion.
Rideau Hall is the official residence of Governor General Julie Payette and its grounds are also the site of Rideau Cottage, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family reside. Neither the Trudeau family nor Payette were there at the time of the incident. Hurren appeared to have uploaded numerous conspiracy theories to social media accounts associated with his Manitoba sausage-making business. The RCMP would not comment on any suspected motives for the incident.
Hurren has not been charged with any national security-related offences, but the fact that the RCMP’s integrated national security team is leading the investigation “suggests that there’s a national security component to their investigation,” said Leah West, a former Department of Justice national security lawyer.
“In order to bring charges of terrorism, they would need to have reason to believe that he was motivated by political, ideological or religious motives, and that he intended to intimidate likely in this case the prime minister or elements of the government,” West said Friday in an interview. “That may not have been apparent on its face from the initial investigation.”
A day after the incident, a details of Hurren’s life emerged through conversations with friends and acquaintances, interviews with government officials, as well as from his online presence.
The Department of National Defence confirmed that Hurren had been a reservist from 1997 to 2000, earning the rank of corporal in an artillery unit based in Regina. In 2019, he reenrolled in the Canadian Rangers, a reserve unit that works in northern and remote parts of the country.
He was considered to be on duty at the time of his arrest, and had been assigned to Operation Laser, the military’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A DND spokesperson, Daniel LeBouthillier, said Hurren “travelled to Ottawa of his own accord without the knowledge of his chain of command.”
Hurren’s Rangers-issued rifle was not used in the attack and remains in the possession of the Canadian Forces.
LeBouthillier said there were no red flags on Hurren’s service file that would have barred his re-enrolment in the reserves. He confirmed that an administrative review would be conducted to assess whether he would be released from the Canadian Forces. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have taken a particular toll on Hurren, whose Grindhouse Fine Meats business had been temporarily closed. Bill Gade, a radio host in Bowsman, said Hurren “worked his butt off ” at the local co-op and “worked even harder to make his own business, and he was doing well.”
The pandemic, however, put all that on hold.
In March, just as the COVID-19 lockdowns began, the Grindhouse Instagram account featured a post about “going down the rabbit hole” into QAnon conspiracy theories. QAnon is an American conspiracy group focused on a supposed “deep state” conspiracy against U.S. President Donald Trump that boasts a worldwide following. Dozens of QAnon signs were spotted at a far-right rally held on Parliament Hill the day before the Rideau Hall attack.
“Has anyone else been following ‘Q’ and the ‘White Rabbit’ down the rabbit hole and how this all relates the Corona virus (sic)/COVID-19 situation?” reads a March 27 post on Grindhouse Fine Foods’ Instagram account.
“Lots of coincidences in all these ‘Q’ posts if this turns out to be a ‘nothingburger’.”
Attached to the post were a series of hashtags, referencing debunked conspiracy theories.
The Star reported Thursday that another COVID-19 conspiracy meme was posted to a Facebook account associated with Hurren just minutes before the truck crashed through the gates at Rideau Hall.
Gade noted that Trudeau isn’t much loved in Western Canada, with Bowsman being no different, but said Hurren was not particularly political.
“I've never heard that type of stuff from Corey, more than you'd hear from any normal person — just unhappy with the government and all those people in the east,” Gade told the Star.
Gade said he noticed Hurren’s social media posts have “gotten a little stranger over the last couple of weeks,” although he added that’s been true for many people coping with the stress of lockdown.
Last year, Hurren joined an RCMP manhunt in northern Manitoba for teen murder suspects Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky.
Hurren’s social media posts suggested anxiety about the pandemic. He recently started following a number of survivalist accounts on Instagram, and appeared to worry about the future of his business.
“I am not sure what will be left of our economy, industries, and businesses when this all ends,” he wrote on Facebook.
Hurren will remain in police custody until July 17, when he is scheduled to make another appearance in an Ottawa courtroom via video conference.