House arrest for threatening neighbour with shotgun over garbage can dispute

A 26-year-old man will be under house arrest for the next three months, followed by three months of curfew after he pointed a loaded shotgun at his neighbour's head in 2019 – all over a dispute about garbage cans.

On the morning of March 22, 2019, police swarmed the area around Kelowna's Richter Street and Birch Avenue for a report of a firearm being brandished in the area.

Bizarrely, the altercation stemmed from a simmering dispute between neighbours over the placement of garbage cans in an alleyway. After several weeks of butting heads, the dispute came close to serious violence on the morning in question, when Brandon Matechuk pointed a loaded shotgun at his neighbour's head and said “I don't f*** around, I don't call the cops.”

Matechuk was arrested at the scene and charged with a number of firearm-related offences.

Friday morning, he pleaded guilty to pointing the shotgun, uttering threats and possessing an SKS rifle without a licence.

As part of a plea deal, the Crown dropped four other charges Matechuk was facing, including assault with a weapon.

During sentencing submissions, Crown prosecutor David Ruse said Matechuk's girlfriend was leaving their home on the morning of March 22, when she moved several garbage cans from behind her car, resulting in a “verbal exchange” with her neighbour.

While what was said during the exchange is “subject to some dispute,” Matechuk's girlfriend said the neighbour had “said words to the effect that he was going to bring his biker buddies over to deal with her.”

Matechuk's defence counsel Wade Jenson said the woman called Matechuk “crying uncontrollably” and told him their neighbour had threatened her.

In response, Matechuk grabbed a gym bag with a loaded shotgun in it, and knocked on the door of his neighbour.

The neighbour denied threatening Matechuk's girlfriend, but when the two men stepped outside to view the garbage cans, Matechuk pulled the shotgun from his bag and pointed it at the neighbour's face. The neighbour ran back into his house and called police.

Matechuk stashed the bag and gun under his porch, but police soon found it, loaded with 10 rounds. Police also found a second bag with an SKS rifle and five loose rounds. The rifle did not have a trigger lock on it. Matechuk did not have a firearms licence, although Jenson said his client had taken a firearms safety course in the past.

During Friday's submissions, Jenson noted his client's decision to threaten his neighbour was made after his girlfriend claimed to have been threatened by the neighbour herself.

“It was in response to this that Mr. Matechuk, still half asleep, made the impulsive decision to respond in support of his partner,” Jenson said.

“It was arguably well intentioned I suppose. It obviously simply wasn't well thought out. It was impulsive and he's regretted it ever since.”

Matechuk, who now lives in Kamloops, grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, and Jenson says he was raised around firearms. He had no prior criminal record.

Jenson and Ruse presented a joint submission to Justice Gary Weatherill Friday morning, both agreeing that a nine-month conditional sentence was appropriate.

Justice Weatherill said he found the incident “troubling,” but was “reluctantly satisfied” the sentence would not bring the justice system into “disrepute” – the bar required for a judge to go against a joint sentencing submission.

When asked by Justice Weatherill if he had anything to say prior to sentencing, Matechuk initially said no, until the judge asked “What were you thinking?”

“I don't know, it was just a bad decision. I didn't really think that morning,” Matechuk said.

Justice Weatherill continued: “It's incredible to me that a fight over a garbage can escalated to a point that you felt the need to take out a shotgun and point it at the neighbour's face and threaten him. And you have nothing to say about that?”

“I didn't do it until I felt threatened myself," Matechuk responded. "To me it wasn't about garbage cans, it was about trying to be safe at home. I just went about it the wrong way.”

Going along with the joint submission, Justice Weatherill sentenced Matechuk to a nine-month conditional sentence. The first three months Matechuk will be under house arrest, the next three months he'll be under a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., and the last three months he won't be under any restrictions around leaving his home.

If he breaches any of his conditions during the nine-month period, he could instead serve the sentence in jail.

Less than a month after the incident with Matechuk and his neighbour, another Okanagan neighbour dispute had far more tragic consequences, when 67-year-old John Brittain shot and killed four people in Penticton who had been having petty disputes with his ex wife over several years.

In October 2020, Brittain pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to life in jail with no chance of parole for 25 years. He said he had a "mental breakdown" on the day of the murders.