OTTAWA – “Freedom Convoy” organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are not on trial for their political beliefs, a Crown prosecutor told an Ottawa courtroom Tuesday.
Rather, they must answer to charges related to the means they used to achieve their goal.
Tim Radcliffe told the court the two organizers didn’t just “hold the line” during their illegal occupation of downtown Ottawa last year, they “crossed the line, and in so doing they committed multiple crimes.”
When the highly anticipated trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber finally gets underway this week, there likely won’t be much arguing about what happened or what roles the two infamous figures played during the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” protests in Ottawa.
That winter, the two led thousands of trucks and other vehicles to the capital. They rallied the protesters, and told them to “hold the line” when police tried to break up the honking crowds. They also raised millions of dollars for the movement.
The Sun has live updates but this is just preliminary stuff – LIVE UPDATES: Trial of convoy protest organizers Tamara Lich, Chris Barber begins today
As Tamara Lich was led away from supporters in handcuffs on the snowy streets of Ottawa in 2022, she threw a single phrase over her shoulder.
“Hold the line,” said the petite figurehead of the “Freedom Convoy” movement as the officers at each of her elbows walked her to the waiting cruiser.
OTTAWA – It’s a sunny July day at an outdoor hockey rink outside North Bay, Ont. An acoustic guitar player belts out a ballad about freedom. An adoring crowd sings along.
Tamara Lich, mounted on the back of a brown and white horse and waving a large Canadian flag, enters the arena.
“Love a grand entrance,” the 50-year-old says enthusiastically with a wide smile and a laugh, getting hoots and whistles from supporters gathered to hear her speak, as seen in a video posted on social media.
This Canadian province wants to pick immigrants based on their nation. Is that fair, or a ‘slippery slope’?
In a first-of-its-kind pilot project, Saskatchewan is picking skilled immigrants based on their country of residence, raising eyebrows for deviating from Canada’s selection system that has otherwise been open to all regardless of race and nationality.
In August, the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program created six draws with the goal of inviting 542 skilled immigrants in dozens of occupational backgrounds to settle in the province as permanent residents.
The catch is only those who are living in one of these eight countries can qualify: Czechia, Germany, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Because Canada’s current policy inviting incompatible cultures who have little to no desire to integrate has worked out so well.
Just think of the ethno-religious conflicts we’d miss out on if we screened for suitability! Assassinations, riots, honor killings!
Such vibrant diversity makes us stronger.
Canadians love being treated like 2nd class citizens in their own nation and understand that immigration policy must always conform to the needs of the corporate and political class.
You gotta break a few eggs to depress wages, create housing shortages and foment a fearful balkanized society I always say.
But here’s the rub, Trudeau has turned Canada into such a shithole state that the majority of “permanent residents” no longer desire to become citizens:
In 2021, nearly 45.7 per cent of permanent residents who’d been in Canada for less than 10 years became citizens.
That’s down from 60 per cent in 2016, and 75.1 per cent in 2001.
But of course the Star finds an “expert” who argues the old system is working just fine. Fine in the sense that today’s immigrants are not the old immigrants and are more likely to use Canada only as a safe place to park their money before moving on to greener pastures.
Fine in the sense the government is so inept they lost track of a million migrants thus grossly understating the housing and infrastucture crisis.
That’s a great return on investment.
OTTAWA — The leaders of the “Freedom Convoy” are preparing to answer to criminal charges next week for their part in the massive demonstration that gridlocked Ottawa last year — but the stakes go beyond the actions of two protest organizers.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were among the most prominent organizers of the protest movement that rolled into Ottawa early in 2022, and they’re scheduled to be the first members of the organizing committee to stand trial on Sept. 5.
It is designed to denigrate & defame Detective Grus.
Hearing to continue for Ottawa police officer accused of looking for vaccine links to child death cases
The first week of misconduct hearings for an Ottawa police officer facing Police Service Act charges for allegedly inserting herself into children’s death investigations wrapped up on Friday.
The latest @OttawaCitizen article about @OttawaPolice Detective Helen Grus is a hit piece. It is designed to denigrate & defame Detective Grus.
The story makes it appear that there was, and still is, a criminal investigation against Detective Grus.
That's a lie, and the Citizen… pic.twitter.com/bGmUkbjTUe
— DonaldBest.CA * DO NOT COMPLY (@DonaldBestCA) August 27, 2023
Jordan Peterson will soon find out if the courts will stop the College of Psychologists of Ontario from requiring him to undergo social media training, which was ordered in response to public complaints about his online conduct.
In January, Peterson posted a document on social media that detailed a number of complaints that had been made to the college, which raised concerns about how Peterson, who’s a regular media commentator on current affairs, was comporting himself online.
Ottawa Police Service (OPS) leadership singled out a detective because she opposed Covid mandates and was critical of the vaccine, and even forbid her from discussing Covid at work, according to evidence and testimony provided during Detective Helen Grus’ discreditable conduct tribunal, which recessed Friday.
OTTAWA—An audio recording played at the pre-trial for Helen Grus—an Ottawa Police Service (OPS) detective being charged with disorderly conduct for investigating the vaccination status of the mothers of deceased infants—showed she sent two emails to then-Police Chief Peter Sloly to discuss a spike in infant deaths and a number of police officers with COVID-19 vaccine-related heart problems.
The intake of newcomers is rising rapidly and straining housing, healthcare and transportation
Canada is known for its embrace of immigrants and hasn’t experienced the same backlash that has been seen recently in countries such as the U.S. and the Netherlands. But new polling released last month from Ottawa-based Abacus Data reflects skepticism, with 61% of citizens saying the government’s plans are too ambitious because of the negative impact on housing and healthcare. The Canadian Medical Association said the country’s population-to-physician ratio ranks 29th out of 36 developed-world economies, while data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show Canada’s hospital-bed capacity is one of the lowest on a per-capita basis among rich-world economies.
Canada is known for its embrace of immigrants?
Submission to mass immigration is more like it. Romanticized views of immigration in Canada are the domain of politicians selling snake oil nowadays.
No one signed on for an inundation of incompatible cultures or to have their own government dismiss their heritage and nation as so much racist garbage.
Multiculturalism was weaponized and the smear of racism was used as a bludgeon to smash dissent and ensure Canadians clapped like trained seals in approval whenever the topic of immigration was raised.
Ethnic disaporas possessed of little in common with Canadian values are catered to by our political class who tolerate the intolerable for votes.
Who asked that hiring decisions be made on the basis of government ordained victim status?
Who asked that being white be considered a virtual hate crime and Canada be turned into a low trust society?
Who asked for “racialized sentencing guidelines” for criminals as if the average Joe who just wants to be left alone is somehow responsible for the alleged historic oppression of predators?
No one asked for a balkanized society where foreign ethnic conflicts spill out into our streets.
Who asked for an immigration policy that does not benefit citizens?
No one asked because it was imposed upon us and its true purpose is to benefit the corporate and political classes at our expense.
No one asked because divide and conquer works best when its victims are forbidden to talk about it until it’s too late.
This so called “embrace of immigration” is better described as a choke hold.
The outrage at the Coutts/NatWest debanking scandal in the United Kingdom does not align with the complete disinterest in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s debanking of an entire political caste.
It was entirely appropriate for people to express their horror upon discovering banks were routinely passing moral judgment on the politics of their customers. It was correct for the British government to panic and swear to fix the problem (even though they low-key endorsed ESG practices for years). If restrictions are placed on banks in the future, especially relating to their licences, this will mark progress in the protection of citizen rights.
As the court trial continues for four men arrested in Coutts, Alberta, for allegedly conspiring to kill RCMP officers during the 2022 convoy protests, some law enforcement and legal experts claim that the denial of bail to the men is unusual, suggesting that the case is being “politically influenced.”
The echelons of power within the government, the media, and throughout society appear to be wittingly or unwittingly nurturing the seeds of another Timothy McVeigh as they continue to target their political opponents. They are crafting the playbook for the very forces they claim to counter.
“The wiretap was calculated to intimidate Detective Grus and her family – but all these ‘Urgent Emergency’ wiretaps during the Freedom Convoy backfired.
The wiretaps served only to galvanize Canadians and strengthen the legitimacy of protest against governments that overstepped their authority and power.”
Rob Stocki – former Ottawa Police Sergeant
