A Bridesville woman who barricaded her front door and attempted to block police from executing a court order to take custody of her child is claiming the RCMP violated her Charter rights.
Eileen Rebecca Mackenzie, who says she goes by just Mackenzie, appeared in Penticton Provincial Court to face trial for charges of assaulting a peace officer and obstructing a peace officer.
The charges stem from officers enforcing a court order to remove Mackenzie's son from her home in June of 2024, which went off the rails due to the fact that Mackenzie follows several beliefs shared by the Freeman on the Land, a Canadian sovereign citizen-styled movement, though she denies being a member or supporting the movement.
The loosely connected group uses pseudo-legal claims to argue that they can use a magical combination of words to retract their consent from being under the jurisdiction of the Canadian courts, government and RCMP.
The trial got off to a rocky start as Mackenzie, representing herself, repeatedly argued with the judge during her opening statement over the fairness of the trial to the point of being warned about the risk of being charged with contempt of court if she continued her behaviour.
"This courtroom runs on the rule of law, not on some Youtube theories or wishful thinking, it's not going to bend to any personal fictions, it's going to be applied equally to you," said Judge Gregory Koturbash. "Your personal convictions aren't going to override the law of this land, and they will not obstruct the process.
You are in a courtroom, you respect the court, and you will follow the rules of this court and not some folklore or invented doctrines."
Mackenzie had also slipped a wireless earbud in and started a call on her phone, during the morning portion of the trial, with her support person and fellow Freeman on the Land believer on the other end of the line. That earned both another warning from the judge before the trial resumed.
The court heard that Mackenzie had rejected the disclosure package provided by the Crown prosecution, but had provided a video of the incident that had been recorded by another Freeman supporter and posted to TikTok.
The video is an hour long, and includes most of the main incident, starting shortly after the police arrived and produced the court order requiring Mackenzie to give up her son, then the RCMP breaking down the front door, and the eventual physical confrontation where they arrested Mackenzie.
Also entered into evidence were photographs of the scrapes and bruising one of the officers had received during the confrontation.
Shortly before she took the stand to begin testifying during the second day of her trial on April 8, Mackenzie informed the court that she was filing a Charter rights violation claim, alleging that the police entering her home had been an unreasonable search under Section 8, that she had been unlawfully detained under Section 9 and that there had been no justification for the force used on her by the RCMP and thus violated Section 7 of the Charter.
Section 7 of the Charter guarantees the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, and the right not to be deprived of them except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
During her testimony, she also denied being a member of the Freeman on the Land movement.
"I never said I don't follow the laws, I have a moral code and I'm a part of the system, I have a license, and I pay my taxes," said Mackenzie. "From what I understand of it, it's an oxymoron; you can't be a sovereign citizen, you can either just be a sovereign or a citizen, I never really identified as either."
However, despite her claims, the video and testimony from the police officers had Mackenzie making claims along Freeman on the Land beliefs, such as claiming that if an officer doesn't have 10 business cards on their person, they aren't in uniform and are thus a civilian and that by entering her property they had agreed to a contract written on the no-trespassing sign which states they needed to pay her $100,000.
She also stated that she never wanted to get into a conflict with the police and that it had resulted from miscommunication due to losing her lawyer for family court and failing to receive paperwork informing her that she had been summoned. She also pointed out that she had dutifully appeared in court every time she had received a summons.
Several months after the police arrived to serve the court order, she and the father of her child appeared in court and a judge issued an arrangement for shared custody, returning her son to her.
Due to the time it took to get through the opening and initial testimony from Crown's witnesses, an additional day of trial was scheduled for May which will hear Mackenzie's defence witnesses and the Charter claims.
