Convoy Protester Whose Bank Accounts Were Frozen Appeals Conviction

Police confront participants of the Freedom Convoy protest after the Emergencies Act was invoked, on Feb. 19, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images

A Freedom Convoy protester who had his bank accounts frozen under the Emergencies Act will be appealing his conviction, with his lawyers set to argue that the court should consider whether his Charter Rights were violated.

Evan Blackman was convicted of mischief and obstructing police following his arrest in February 2022. He received a conditional discharge, 12 months of probation, 122 hours of community service, and a $200 victim fine surcharge.

Lawyers with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) will appear before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on June 25 to challenge the court’s prior refusal to consider whether the freezing of Blackman’s bank accounts violated his Section 8 rights, which protect against unreasonable search and seizure.

Blackman had been arrested during the Freedom Convoy protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health restrictions. The federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time ever on Feb. 14, 2022, to give law enforcement expanded powers to arrest demonstrators, require towing companies to remove protesters’ vehicles from Ottawa’s downtown core, and freeze the bank accounts of some protesters.

While Blackman was acquitted of charges in October 2023, the Crown appealed the acquittal in 2024, and a new trial began in August 2025. According to the JCCF, the judge had said Blackman was a “peacemaker” during the original trial.

During the new trial, Blackman applied for a stay of proceedings under Section 24(1) of the Charter, as he sought a remedy for the freezing of his bank accounts. But the judge ruled that the freezing of his accounts was legally unrelated to his arrest or prosecution, and he therefore lacked standing to seek a stay.

On Nov. 21, 2025, the Ontario Court of Justice convicted Blackman of mischief and obstructing police. According to the JCCF, the court also said the Freedom Convoy was an “occupation” of downtown Ottawa, and that Blackman was a party to “mass mischief.”

In its appeal, the JCCF will be asking the court to consider whether the trial judge applied an incorrect legal test when dismissing Blackman’s application for a stay of proceedings. Constitutional lawyer Chris Fleury said the freezing of bank accounts is an “extraordinary use of state power.”

“When the government interferes with a person’s ability to access their own money, courts must carefully examine whether those actions respected the protections guaranteed by the Charter,” Fleury said.

In 2023, Commissioner Paul Rouleau of the Public Order Emergency Commission—created to determine whether the federal government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act—ruled that cabinet met the “very high” threshold to invoke the act.

Rouleau said the Liberal government had reasonable grounds to believe that there was a national emergency arising from the protest that “necessitated the taking of special temporary measures.”

However, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley issued a ruling in early 2024 that the government’s invocation of the Act did not “bear the hallmarks of reasonableness—justification, transparency and intelligibility—and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.”

Mosley also said that the Emergencies Act infringed the charter’s Section 2(b), which deals with “freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression,” and Section 8, which deals with “the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”