Why Isn’t This Menacing Extremist in Custody?

[Content warning: This article quotes graphic, hateful language and describes a violent attack.]

Art Mortimer knew instinctively that if he didn’t take a chance and try to grab the four-foot iron bar wielded like a baseball bat by the enraged trucker, he would be seriously injured or killed.

Mortimer, a commercial transport inspector at a weigh station near Sparwood, B.C., had issued two tickets to the trucker and told him about a provincial rule that required him to shift the load.

The trucker circled his Mack semi-trailer truck around the station once, and then rammed Mortimer’s 1981 Datsun car into the side of the weighmaster building.

Armed with the bar, the trucker clambered onto the car’s roof and started smashing out the remaining glass in the building’s windows while yelling that he was coming for Mortimer.

Standing behind the counter as this surreal attack unfolded, Mortimer irrationally thought, “I can’t fight him in here, we just got new computers.” So he bolted out the front door.

“He caught me real quick,” Mortimer recalls. “He is a pretty big, tall fellow. He came at me with a batter’s stance like he was going to swing at my head and I thought, ‘Well, my only option is to close in on him and grab the bar,’ which I did.

“We wrestled over the bar for a while and he gave me a couple of hockey checks with it, tried to knee me in the groin, but he was quite a bit taller than me so I took it all belt high.”

He doesn’t recall much of what was said between them as they wrestled face to face, except the trucker calling him an “anal-retentive, civil service piece of shit.”

When asked, Mortimer immediately remembers the date of the incident — July 20, 1994 — and he will never forget the man who attacked and later publicly harassed him: Donald Alexander Laird.

“He is a bully and he is good at it,” Mortimer said.

I tracked down Mortimer, now 74 years old and long retired, because I wanted to ask him if he thought Laird posed a risk to the safety of Edmonton NDP MLA Marlin Schmidt.

An Edmonton judge convicted Laird in November 2023 for sending a horrific graphic death threat to Schmidt. The judge issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear for his sentencing on Feb. 5 this year.

I attended the Feb. 5 hearing and put a reminder in my calendar for a couple of months hence to check if he had turned himself in or had been arrested.

Given the ongoing issue of police failing to take seriously death threats against, and harassment of, journalists, especially women and persons of colour, I wanted to find out which police service was responsible for finding and arresting him, and if that was being done.

“There are warrants on the system for this individual which can be executed by any police officer within Alberta” is the single-line response I received from the Edmonton Police Service, or EPS.

An RCMP spokesperson confirmed there are warrants in the system and if Laird somehow gets stopped, he will be arrested. But as far as the spokesperson knew, there was no active search for Laird.

A history of unhinged harassment

A year ago, the United Conservative Party government announced the formation of a Fugitive Apprehension Sheriffs Support Team, or FASST. Twenty additional sheriffs were to be hired at a cost of $2 million to hunt down Alberta’s worst offenders with outstanding warrants.

FASST was supposed to be operational in March 2024. Arthur Green, Alberta Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis’s press secretary, did not respond to an email asking if it was.

The EPS, which charged Laird, has been, at best, lackadaisical about Schmidt’s safety, despite the fact that Laird has a well-documented history of extreme racist hate-mongering and unhinged, prolonged harassment dating back decades.

His hatred of police is also well documented; in fact, Edmonton police have publicly stated that Laird is dangerous, and in at least one case, officers treated him as a safety threat to themselves.

Mortimer has no doubt about the risk posed to Schmidt by Laird.

“I think he should be very concerned,” he said. “I was just enforcing the law here in B.C. regarding commercial transport and he rammed my car into the side of the building. That is not a sane act.”

Mortimer also recalled Laird, at his criminal trial for the attack, had testified he had been a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment from Petawawa, Ontario.

“He testified that he had been a member of the Canadian parachute regiment that was accused of abusing Somalis in Somalia and was disbanded.”

That is true, but Laird was honourably discharged from the regiment in 1988, years before the 1993 Somali scandal. According to an Ottawa Citizen story, Laird filed a formal grievance after his discharge in which he alleged that soldiers, including himself, were sent into war games over the objections of military doctors, soldiers had been ordered to beat other soldiers, and soldiers were sent out in unsafe vehicles. The allegations were dismissed by the base.

Mortimer recalls that Laird also testified in that criminal trial that he had been driving for 48 hours with only four hours of sleep before the attack. But Laird didn’t see that as an issue because he had been trained in the military to deal with explosives even when exhausted.

Racist messages to professors

I first became interested in who Donald Laird was in 2022, while researching state-funded bullying and intimidation by the previous United Conservative Party government of Jason Kenney.

A story published by The Tyee in May 2023 revealed how Kenney, some of his cabinet ministers and several highly paid political staffers conducted targeted, sometimes co-ordinated online attacks against what former senior staffers say were any “perceived enemies,” including academics, journalists, doctors, teachers, union leaders, environmentalists, provincial and federal opposition politicians and even private citizens.

In early March 2022, Kenney publicly criticized Ubaka Ogbogu, a Black University of Alberta law professor who was frequently a sharp critic of the Kenney government, particularly in relation to its handling of the pandemic.

Laird responded to what Ogbogu characterized as Kenney’s “dog whistle” post by anonymously leaving virulently racist voicemail messages for Ogbogu with his colleagues, and with Melanee Thomas, a University of Calgary political scientist, who had publicly supported Ogbogu after Kenney singled him out.

Both Ogbogu and Thomas filed formal complaints. Calgary police took carriage of the criminal investigation and determined it was Laird who had left the voicemail messages.

Thomas, in her complaint, said she thought Laird had called her “because I am white, and he’s obviously angry that, as a white woman, I offered support to my colleague who is Black and from Nigeria.”

Laird also told Thomas that the presence in Canada of men like Ogbogu, and another Black University of Alberta professor, was “coming to an end.”

“He refers to me as a ‘white guilt junkie’ and claims I am ‘wearing out my welcome as well.’ He clearly states he wants to replace Black people with white folks from ‘Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Europe or Scandinavia.’ He finishes by telling me to pack my bags and ‘fuck off.’”

In an email, a Calgary police officer told Thomas that after a long consultation, the Crown had decided not to charge Laird.

“This was based on a number of factors, but I believe the main reason being that typically he escalates after being charged.”

But the officer said Laird recently had been charged in Lethbridge with similar offences.

A court search showed Laird, who was then 62, had been charged on March 31, 2022, with harassing a person, believed to be a judge, and two counts of inciting or promoting hate toward Muslims between Aug. 14 and Sept. 8, 2021.

Laird is next scheduled to appear in court in Lethbridge on May 21.

Assassination scenario sent to MLA

The court records also show Laird has had 10 charges either stayed or withdrawn in Alberta since 2015, including six charges of unlawful harassment, one for harassment by mail and another for indecent communications.

An online search uncovered numerous posts on far-right websites in which Laird, in long screeds, expresses extreme virulent hatred for Muslims, and the RCMP. Jews, he wrote in one post, deserved to die in the Holocaust because they were feckless cowards. He authored another article entitled “Muslim Men: Pathetic Cowards and Uninspired Apes” and has called for Muslims to be deported.

Schmidt drew Laird’s ire when he made a flippant comment about former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the legislature on July 8, 2020. Schmidt said the only thing he regretted about Thatcher’s 2013 death is that it was “probably 30 years too late.” Schmidt apologized after he was chastised by the Speaker.

The following day, July 9, 2020, Laird sent an email, subject titled “Alberta NDP funnyman Marlin Schmidt and his wife assassinated while shopping.” He copied the email to the accounts of 20 federal, provincial and municipal politicians, journalists, columnists and media outlets, including Alberta Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, current Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi.

The email, obtained by The Tyee, included three graphic images of a man and woman, lying entwined, dead in a pool of blood on the floor of a mall.

Under the photos is a title, “NDP Marlin Schmidt and his wife,” followed by a violent fantasy.

“NDP MLA Marlin Schmidt always liked to laugh at the deaths and misfortunes of others, especially his political opponents.”

“Last week a gunman caught up with funnyman Marlin Schmidt and his wife while they were out shopping. It was hilarious as the gunman put a couple bullets into each of them, including a couple well placed head shots.”

The statement claims Schmidt’s wife was pregnant, “so really, it was a 3-for-2 special!”

Schmidt got down on his knees, the statement claims, and pleaded with the gunman to shoot his wife but not him because he was a “really, really important politician.”

In the email’s text, Laird tells the recipients that perhaps they can remind Schmidt that finding “hilarity in the deaths of one’s political opponents is a two-way street.”

Laird said the photos were of a couple murdered by a Muslim gunman during an attack at the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on Sept. 21, 2013. Sixty-six people were killed in that attack.

“[This] is yet another example of the sweet, sweet, peaceful, harmless and loving Islam and Muslims in action.......you know Islam ???.........the ‘religion of peace.’”

Laird affixed his name to both the email and the graphic image.

At trial, as first reported by the Edmonton Journal, Schmidt told the court it was the most graphic and terrifying communication he had ever received.

Police failed to tell victim of Laird’s violent past

Laird, acting as his own counsel, compared the images to a satirical political cartoon, meant to lampoon Schmidt for his callous statement about Thatcher. He accused Schmidt and his staff of being hypersensitive and of weaponizing the criminal justice system.

The judge, however, said it clearly wasn’t political commentary and found Laird guilty of making an indecent communication with intent to alarm. The charge carries a maximum $5,000 fine and a potential prison sentence of two years less a day.

In an interview last week, Schmidt said he found the email and the court case extremely unsettling. He is no longer married, so that part of Laird’s screed made no sense and was a “complete fabrication.”

“From the line of questioning and from the defence that he made, it really seemed like he thought that this was something that I deserved to have happen to me because of the things that I have said in the past,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt thinks Laird sent the email “just to even the score. It was like, ‘Here is a person who is saying things that I find offensive and that I disagree with and so I’m going to get back at him.’”

After his office received Laird’s email, he immediately contacted the Alberta legislature’s sergeant-at-arms, who is responsible for MLA safety. The sergeant-at-arms in turn directed Schmidt to the Edmonton police.

Schmidt said police told him nothing about Laird’s violent past, or his history of harassment, and they gave him no security advice. The Crown told him in “vague terms” that Laird had been charged before but never convicted “and that was the extent of it.”

The sergeant-at-arms had told Schmidt and his staff to stay away from the MLA’s office and suggested they always lock the door.

“We still keep the doors locked at the office and only meet with people by appointment just because this guy is still on the loose,” he said.

Schmidt told me he learned more from me about Laird’s past than he had from the police.

“I guess the most charitable explanation I can give is that their risk assessment is identifying a lower risk than mine is,” he said.

Which is odd, given that Edmonton police have publicly stated Laird was dangerous and officers took safety precautions when dealing with him.

In 2012, an EPS officer spotted a vehicle illegally parked. The man inside — Laird — was using video recording equipment.

The officer ran the car’s plates through the Canadian Police Information Centre database, or CPIC, and obtained information that the appellant was a “‘freeman on the land,’ had a criminal background and potentially posed a danger to police.”

Three other officers responded “with their emergency lights on” to the officer’s call for backup. One of the officers even photographed their interaction with Laird.

The EPS officer issued two traffic citations to Laird. He filed a complaint to the chief, who dismissed it. He then appealed to the provincial Law Enforcement Review Board, or LERB.

The 2015 LERB ruling says Laird complained about the “grossly unprofessional behaviour of the officers, as their response was completely unwarranted. He claimed they threatened, intimidated and coerced him.”

“He also appealed the two traffic tickets, which he deemed strictly punitive for not answering their questions concerning his camera equipment.”

The LERB ruled against Laird but noted some of the information in CPIC was inaccurate.

I interviewed Art Mortimer after I had interviewed Marlin Schmidt. Mortimer is a person who is careful to be precise about what he knows and doesn’t know. He doesn’t engage in hyperbole and if he’s uncertain about his perspective, he qualifies his statement.

As he took me chronologically through his experience with Laird, it became clear that police, and the courts, had treated his trauma with even less concern than Schmidt had experienced.

Mortimer’s struggle with Laird over the iron bar ended only when Mortimer’s supervisor ran towards them from across the lot. Laird sat down and waited for the RCMP to arrive. He was arrested and taken to the detachment, and Mortimer continued working at the busy weigh station.

About an hour later, the RCMP returned and dropped Laird off at his truck and left. Mortimer’s supervisor was not there, and so there he was again, alone with the man who had rammed his car into the wall and attacked him with an iron bar.

Fortunately Laird left, but then the smear campaign began. Mortimer said Laird produced posters that named him, which he distributed at truck stops throughout B.C. and Alberta.

The posters claimed the provincial government didn’t have the right to regulate the safety of the trucking industry, Mortimer said, “and if they got away with doing it to him, they were going to go after other truckers and he was asking for money for his campaign.” Laird also personally attacked Mortimer, claiming he was overzealous and unreasonable.

A notoriously unscrupulous far-right magazine lionized Laird as a hero leading a campaign against biased and unfair transport inspectors who, for reasons never explained, were targeting out-of-province truckers.

As he awaited trial, Laird harassed other commercial transport inspectors, a fact confirmed by another retired inspector who refused to discuss, even without being named, what Laird had done to him. He didn’t want Laird coming after him again.

Curiously, in 2008 Laird was himself the target of a smear campaign. Following a pay dispute with a trucking company in Edson, Alberta, a photo from Laird’s driver’s licence appeared on posters around the small city west of Edmonton with the warning “Keep an eye on your children.”

The RCMP publicly confirmed the insinuation was false but didn’t have enough evidence to lay charges. In an interview with CBC, Laird likened himself to David Milgaard, who spent 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Laird filed a complaint to the province’s privacy commissioner. An adjudicator ruled that on the balance of probabilities, the employer was responsible for the posters.

The trucking company, however, vigorously denied responsibility and suggested other parties might have been responsible because Laird had been involved in numerous conflicts with other employers. They even suggested Laird himself created the posters.

Confidence in police protection at risk: expert

Art Mortimer was concerned about his reputation as an honest enforcer of government transport regulations. And so he was relieved when Laird was found guilty on both the transport tickets he had issued on July 20, 1994.

Mortimer wasn’t happy when the Crown decided to only go to trial on charges against Laird of common assault and mischief.

In both cases, Mortimer said, Laird, who was self-representing, was allowed to yell at and bully him and other witnesses on the stand.

The judge found Laird guilty of both criminal charges but fined him only $500 on each count.

“So that was kind of the benchmark,” Mortimer said, laughing ironically. “If you wanted to hurt me, that is what it was going to cost you.”

Laird wasn’t ordered to pay restitution for either the building or Mortimer’s car. The province eventually reimbursed him for his car.

Commercial transport inspectors receive a lot of verbal abuse from truckers, and Mortimer said that after the violent Laird attack, and his smear campaign, he became less resilient and needed counselling.

“That helped quite a bit. I learned a lot about myself.”

Mortimer believes Laird’s plan from the outset “was to create as much disturbance and fear and bother as he could. Because if he had wanted to kill me, he could have.”

“Later, I realized that I was just the wrong guy in the wrong place. He was going to make an issue of B.C. commercial transport enforcement, and it became obvious as the situation went on that I was the target of the moment but I wasn’t his main target.”

University of Calgary political scientist Melanee Thomas said the handling by police of Schmidt’s case is troubling for a couple of reasons.

The first is that the police inaction has become tolerated. People, including academics, journalists and politicians, who are frequently subjected to online attacks and threats from people dog whistled by a growing class of populist politicians are now cynical and many no longer demand that police protect their right to free speech.

The second reason flows from the first. If people like Laird are allowed to threaten, harass and intimidate people without consequence, then democracy is undermined.

“Democracy is based on the rule of law and the more these supposedly little things are let go, are ignored, the more our democracy slips.”

If you have any information for this story, or information for another story, please contact Charles Rusnell in confidence via email.