COOPER: The Freedom Convoy exposed Ottawa’s dangerous war on dissent

In early April 2026, Tamara Lich, who helped organize the 2022 truckers’ Freedom Convoy to Ottawa, gave a talk at the University of Calgary. One of the largest lecture theatres, holding over 400 people, was nearly filled. She spoke for an hour and a half without notes and then took another half hour of questions. In return for some minimal assistance in booking the room, I was rewarded with a collection of chocolates (since consumed) and a copy of her book, Hold the Line: My Story from the Heart of the Freedom Convoy. Her talk and her book embodied in my mind the last gasp of Canadian self-respect and pride. More surprisingly, it also expressed the much rarer view that the struggle against bureaucratic tyranny directed by the Government of Canada was more spiritual than political.