Former MPP's Freedom Convoy-related case back on after stay of charges overturned

Ontario MPP Randy Hillier smokes a cigarette as he speaks with the media before turning himself in at the Ottawa Police Services headquarters, Monday, March 28, 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

The criminal case against former Ontario legislator Randy Hillier over his participation in the Freedom Convoy protests is back on after the province’s top court overturned a decision to stay the charges.

The charges were stayed in late 2024 after a lower court judge ruled that the case had stretched too long, taking it past the mandatory time limits set by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The cap is 30 months for cases in Superior Court, and the lower court judge — Superior Court Justice Kerry McVey — found Hillier’s case spanned 31 months and 13 days after deducting delays caused by the defence and exceptional circumstances.

In a decision released Friday, the Court of Appeal for Ontario found McVey should have attributed another 93 days of delay to exceptional circumstances and deducted them from the tally, which would put the case back within the designated limits.

That delay related to the rescheduling of a motion to have the case heard outside of Ottawa, following the release of a Supreme Court decision that affected how such motions are weighed.

McVey accepted that the Supreme Court ruling represented an exceptional circumstance but found the Crown “did not do all it could to ensure the motion was re-heard promptly,” meaning the time could not be deducted.

However, the Appeal Court found that some delay was “inevitable because there was nothing the Crown could have done to obtain an immediate date for the ‘rehearing’ of the change of venue application,” its ruling said.

Prosecutors also did make efforts to address the delay and “accepted one of the earliest dates offered by the court,” the decision said.

“By all accounts, the parties were clearly and legitimately under the impression that no date earlier than September 2023 could be found,” it read.

As a result, the case will be sent back to Superior Court.

Hillier served in the provincial legislature for 15 years, the last three as an independent.

He was charged in March 2022 with nine offences connected to his alleged role in the Freedom Convoy demonstrations that flooded Ottawa’s downtown core for weeks. The protests opposed COVID-19 measures and the federal government.

The charges include assaulting a peace officer, mischief, counselling others to commit mischief and resisting or obstructing a peace officer. The assault charge stemmed from allegations that Hillier pushed a metal gate into an officer while trying to enter Parliament Hill.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2026.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press