OTTAWA—Crown prosecutors are attempting to hold Freedom Convoy organizers responsible for the actions of others, despite their having urged protesters to be peaceful and cooperate with police, Tamara Lich’s lawyer said during the closing arguments of her trial in Ottawa.
“The Crown asks that those leaders be held criminally responsible for the actions of unidentified others who were directed into the downtown core of Ottawa, and then were allowed to stay for a three-week period of time without so much as a single parking ticket being issued to any one of them,” defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon said on Aug. 23.
Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, two of the main organizers of the Freedom Convoy protest in early 2022, are charged with mischief, intimidation, and counselling others to break the law, while Barber is also accused of counselling others to disobey a court order. The protest began in response to pandemic-related restrictions and vaccine mandates, and resulted in large numbers of trucks gathering in downtown Ottawa to protest the measures.
Greenspon said prosecutors have attempted to criminalize the behaviour of Lich because of the “common location and the lawful democratic purpose that thousands of Canadians sought to achieve” while in Ottawa.
He said the Crown has ignored the agreement made between Lich and the City of Ottawa to reduce the footprint of the protest. He added that the Crown has assumed that the “constitutionally entrenched” rights to freedom of expression and assembly “take a back seat” to the right of enjoyment of property.
“We say not so,” Greenspon said.
According to Greenspon, the Ottawa Police Service had also failed to deal with the protest, directing the vehicles into the city’s downtown core and then “failing or refusing to enforce” any bylaws or laws that would reduce the impact of their presence.
Greenspon said that of all the court cases cited by the Crown in its final submissions, none involved protesters being told by police exactly where to go and then later being prosecuted.
He also said the Crown’s submission failed to include a quote from Justice Hugh McLean, who brought forth the injunction against honking horns during the protest. Greenspon said McLean “preserved the rights of the demonstrators in an unprecedented way” by issuing an order that stated the protesters remained “at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest.”
Throughout the week, Crown lawyers have made the argument that the case against Lich and Barber is “overwhelming” and that the two worked closely together to encourage protesters to commit illegal acts. Greenspon said, the “thing that is overwhelming is the unprecedented resources that have been afforded to the prosecution of this case.”
While the trial was supposed to take just 16 days, a series of delays and complex legal arguments have caused it to last nearly a year.
