Rebel News on X - "EXCLUSIVE: Privy Council caught deleting Freedom Convoy docs tied to illegal Emergencies Act invocation. The prime minister's personal bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office claim documents related to former RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki's communications and federal government messages to Big Tech companies during the Freedom Convoy were “transitory.” Only in Ottawa could freezing bank accounts, jailing peaceful protesters, and illegally invoking a wartime law be dismissed as a “transitory” event — but here we are. While Canadians are still fighting in court, the federal bureaucracy quietly deleted key records tied to the 2022 Freedom Convoy. And they admitted it to us in writing. You’re not going to believe the latest excuse coming out of Ottawa. The Privy Council Office — the prime minister’s own central bureaucracy — now claims that the documents tied to the Emergencies Act were “transitory.” That’s their explanation for why records tied to the first-ever use of that wartime law against Canadian citizens have… conveniently disappeared. Deleted. Did you know that? The federal bureaucracy is literally wiping convoy records while criminal and civil cases are still winding their way through the courts. And they admitted this in writing — to us — while we were in the middle of appealing the redactions on those same documents. You can’t make this up. The document we were appealing was submitted as evidence to the Public Order Emergency Commission. It isn’t a stray email or an admin memo; it’s a ministerial update containing a situation report from then–RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki."
Eva Chipiuk, BSc, LLB, LLM on X - "Another day, another display of government contempt for its own citizens as they lie to you, strip your rights, arrest you, prosecute you, gaslight you, steal from you, silence you, delete the records that would hold them accountable, and then laugh, because they designed the rules so they can do all of this and get away with it. And that is why nothing will change on its own. Regardless of who is in charge, we need strong laws on transparency and accountability to restore the balance between public servants, institutions, and the people they are meant to serve. As long as they can hide their actions and avoid being held accountable for those actions, the system will remain exactly as it is. So the real question is: how much longer are we willing to accept a system that serves itself instead of the people it was built for?"
Federal government loses Emergencies Act appeal, court says use during convoy protest was unreasonable - "The Liberal government unreasonably invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points nearly four years ago, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Friday. The court dismissed the government's appeal of a 2024 ruling which deemed former prime minister Justin Trudeau's decision to use the legislation unlawful and infringed on protesters' Charter rights. "As disturbing and disruptive the blockades and the convoy protests in Ottawa could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security," wrote the three judges on the appeal court. The Federal Court was initially asked to review the government's deeply divisive proclamation of a public order emergency by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the Canadian Constitution Foundation and other groups. In that 2024 decision, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley, since retired, said the government's decision lacked justification, transparency and intelligibility... "There was no evidence that the lives, health or safety of the people living in Ottawa were endangered (as annoying, stressful and concerning as the protests were)," reads the court's decision... Mosley also found the economic orders infringed on protesters' freedom of expression "as they were overbroad in their application to persons who wished to protest but were not engaged in activities likely to lead to a breach of the peace." Friday's court of appeal decision found that there was a "lack of rigour" in identifying people whose bank accounts were frozen, saying financial institutions were expected to rely on information from news or social media reports... The Federal Court of Appeal justices were not convinced by the government's argument that a less stringent definition of "threats to the security of Canada" could be inferred when invoking the act. They also didn't accept Ottawa's reasoning that rendering critical infrastructure unusable amounts to serious violence. "This expansive interpretation … could stifle all kinds of protests and demonstrations that blockade pipelines, nuclear plants, railway lines and other kinds of infrastructure to advance a cause," the decision noted."
Feds spent millions defending Trudeau's Freedom Convoy crackdown — and lost - "A generational civil liberties victory has been upheld. On Jan. 16, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the Trudeau government illegally invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022 in response to the Freedom Convoy. The unanimous judgment, which upheld the lower court’s decision in 2024, is meticulous, devastating, and leaves little room for doubt. Future governments facing political turmoil have been put on clear notice: they cannot casually reach for emergency powers to solve a domestic protest. The case was brought by the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, along with several individuals directly affected by the emergency measures. The court accepted the CCF’s argument that the Emergencies Act was never meant to be easy to use. The act was deliberately crafted as a response to the abuses of the War Measures Act, infamously deployed by Pierre Trudeau during the October Crisis in 1970. Parliament replaced that law with one designed to restrain executive power, not expand it... To invoke the act lawfully, cabinet had to reasonably believe that Canada faced a “threat to the security of Canada” — a term Parliament deliberately imported from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act and associated with serious violence. The government attempted to dilute that meaning, arguing that economic disruption and protest activity could qualify. The court flatly rejected that argument. “To claim that the threshold for declaring a public order emergency … could be lower than the threshold for using the surveillance powers … under the CSIS Act would make little sense,” it wrote. “If anything, it should be the reverse.” Emergency powers, the judges made clear, demand more justification, not less — particularly when they authorize “a vast array of draconian powers without any prior authorization.” Even more damaging was the court’s assessment of the evidence. Aside from the situation in Coutts, where a weapons cache was discovered but resolved using ordinary law before the Emergencies Act was invoked, there was no credible proof of serious violence: “When properly understood as requiring bodily harm, the evidence is quite simply lacking.” CSIS itself had assessed that there was no threat to national security, and the government invoked emergency powers before a requested alternative threat assessment was completed. The court’s conclusion was blunt: “As disturbing and disruptive as the blockades and protests could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security.” The government also failed the Emergencies Act’s “last resort” requirement. Emergency powers may be used only when existing laws are insufficient. Yet the protests were ultimately cleared using the Criminal Code — the very tools already available at the time. The RCMP commissioner at the time had even advised the government that police had not exhausted their existing powers... Equally damning was the government’s disregard for provincial opposition. Most provinces warned that invoking the Emergencies Act would be unnecessary and divisive. Cabinet failed to meaningfully engage with that opposition. “In a federation,” the court wrote, “provinces should be left to determine for themselves how best to deal with a critical situation, especially when it largely calls for the application of the Criminal Code by police forces.” The judges emphasized that if the situation does not exceed capacity or authority of the provinces, “they should be left to their own devices.” The regulations enacted after the declaration fared no better under constitutional scrutiny. The court ruled that the sweeping ban on assemblies violated freedom of expression by criminalizing mere attendance at protests, including peaceful expression on Parliament Hill. Individuals could face up to five years in prison “not because of anything they were doing,” but because someone else nearby might breach the peace. That, the judges held, was grossly overbroad and unconstitutional. Perhaps most chilling was the ruling on the financial measures. Banks were compelled to share Canadians’ private financial information with police without a warrant, without notice, and without recourse. Financial institutions were effectively deputized as agents of the state and told to “leverage the news” and social media to identify suspects. The court found that this ad hoc system “lacked procedural safeguards” and allowed privacy to be invaded based on “potentially unfounded, subjective beliefs.” It violated the Charter’s protection against unreasonable search and could not be justified. This decision now stands as binding precedent. It places real legal constraints on future governments and ensures that the Emergencies Act cannot be repurposed as a political convenience. It restores the act to what Parliament intended: a narrow, exceptional tool, not a blunt instrument against dissent. The government spent millions defending the indefensible. It lost completely. And in doing so, it handed Canadians one of the most important civil liberties rulings in a generation. That is worth celebrating."
Damn Poilievre wasting money on an unnecessary by-election, which is money that could have been used for healthcare!
Like father (either one), like son
Of course, left wingers claim that the federal government was forced to act because Ontario didn't. Too bad the court disagreed
Christine Van Geyn: Feds spent millions defending Trudeau's Freedom Convoy crackdown — and lost : r/canada - "Mark Carney - Those who are still helping to extend this occupation must be identified and punished to the full force of the law. Drawing the line means choking off the money that financed this occupation. But by now anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition."
"I have never been more supportive of Mark Carney than after reading that quote"
"It's fine he was for an illegal act and freezing bank accounts without any due process? Isn't that what everyone is upset with Trump over "due process"?"
Tamara Lich ๐จ๐ฆ on X - "During the Canadian Freedom Convoy, @antihateca falsely claimed that a vile, anti-semetic flyer was being distributed by us on the streets of Ottawa, with no evidence or investigation. (Flyer in comments๐๐ผ) In fact, the photo had been taken two weeks earlier in Florida. By the way, you’re paying them. ๐ฐ"
CCFR/CCDAF on X - "Ontario Crown prosecutors just dropped all gun charges laid against Inderjit Singh Gosal (Brampton), the leader of Sikhs for Justice in Canada. Gosal, charged by the @OPP, was found carrying a loaded, illegal handgun, he claimed was for self-protection."
Tamara Lich ๐จ๐ฆ on X - "How nice of the Ontario Crown prosecutors! It really is just that easy. They decide who and which cases to prosecute/persecute. I can’t tell you how many times crown prosecutors and justices have tried to liken my mischief charge to firearms charges and implying I would be sentenced as such (10 years in prison). In Canada, mischief is treated as a worse offence than illegal, loaded firearms I guess. ๐คท♀️ Further proof we are a country ruled by feelings instead of by the rule of law. @ChrisBarber1975 @18houseHouse @DavidKrayden @ezralevant"
Stevland Ambrose | Facebook - "Today I came across something that deepened a feeling I’ve held for a long time: redemption. I just discovered ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ ๐ก๐ฎ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ท๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ธ—the RCMP’s internal after-action review of the 2022 Freedom Convoy. Though it was quietly published in 2024, I hadn’t heard of it until now. And like so many revelations over the past two years, it only strengthens what my intuition was screaming back then. When the Convoy began, I didn’t know how it would unfold. I couldn’t predict whether it would stay peaceful, whether something would go wrong, or whether I’d later regret speaking up. But I saw the propaganda for what it was: ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ, ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ, ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ผ๐ป๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ. Claims of white supremacy, vandalism, arson, terror plots—all delivered with theatrical certainty and zero scrutiny. I took a risk in defending the Convoy while the events were still unfolding. I didn’t have access to the full picture. But I trusted my instincts. And in the end, I never felt the need to backpedal. Because nothing ever happened that justified the hysteria. The protest remained peaceful. It remained grounded. And it was ๐ญ๐ฆ๐จ๐ข๐ญ. That’s not my opinion. That’s the ruling of ๐๐๐๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ข๐ป๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ผ ๐ฆ๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐, issued ๐ฅ๐ถ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ the Convoy itself. Despite how many times Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh, and others declared it an “illegal occupation,” ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ป’๐. And the evidence just kept mounting. Through the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), we learned:
• CSIS had told the government in advance that there was no evidence of foreign influence or terrorism funding.
• FINTRAC had found no spike in suspicious transactions linked to Convoy fundraising.
• OPP intelligence officers had stated plainly: no credible threat of extremist violence.
Then, in 2024, Justice Mosley of the Federal Court ruled that invoking the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional, unreasonable, and illegal. And now, Project Natterjack reveals that federal officials pressured RCMP intelligence analysts to frame the protest as “ideologically motivated violent extremism”—even though that designation didn’t fit. Analysts were flooded with hourly briefing demands, rushed into producing assessments, and in some cases, reports were misattributed or distorted to fit political expectations. Even more disturbingly, RCMP officers on the ground suspected that the now-infamous swastika photo was staged—possibly orchestrated for media optics. Yet no one in law enforcement or mainstream media appeared interested in verifying who the flag-bearer was or why they vanished, despite the photo being used in Parliament to justify invoking emergency powers. That absence of curiosity was the point. And the persecution continues. Convoy organizers like ๐ง๐ฎ๐บ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฎ ๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ฟ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฟ remain entangled in a legal war of attrition. But even more chilling is the case of ๐ง๐ผ๐ป๐ ๐ข๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ถ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ฟ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐, two men arrested at the ๐๐ผ๐๐๐๐, ๐๐น๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ฎ ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐๐—not Ottawa—yet cited by the government as central justification for the Emergencies Act. They were acquitted by a jury of conspiracy to commit murder, yet sentenced to 6.5 years on lesser charges and recently denied parole, despite:
• Being model prisoners with no violent history,
• Scoring ๐ฎ๐ช๐ฏ๐ช๐ฎ๐ถ๐ฎ ๐ณ๐ช๐ด๐ฌ for recidivism,
• Holding steady jobs and reintegration plans,
• And showing no threat to public safety.
Why were they denied parole? Because of their ๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ผ๐น๐ผ๐ด๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ณ๐. Parole officers and board members explicitly cited their Christian convictions, opposition to mandates, and skepticism of government as evidence of ongoing “risk.” They were penalized for appealing their convictions, for expressing anti-authoritarian views, and even for referencing the fact that exculpatory data had been wiped from their phones. This is not justice. It’s not public safety. It’s not rehabilitation. This is punishment for dissent. This is wrongthink enforcement. And yet… many Canadians don’t care. Because by the time the truth emerged, the damage was already done. A flood of propaganda had convinced millions that the Convoy was hateful, violent, and dangerous. So when the government abused its power, ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ผ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฑ. When it broke the law, they shrugged. And when the courts and intelligence agencies later confirmed that the threat was grossly overstated—or entirely fictional—most Canadians simply moved on. But the public’s indifference is not an accident. It’s the lingering effect of the very lies used to justify the crackdown in the first place. We were told the Convoy was a threat, so the government used exceptional powers to crush it. And now, because people still believe the Convoy was a threat, they don’t care that those powers were used ๐ถ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ด๐ฎ๐น๐น๐. It’s not just unjust—it’s deeply human, in the worst way. We are a species that struggles to say: “Maybe I was wrong.” We double down. We rationalize. We trust the punishment because we never questioned the accusation.
๐ ๐ถ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ข๐จ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต, ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ข ๐ต๐บ๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฏ๐บ, ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ช๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ข๐จ๐ข๐ช๐ฏ๐ด๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ช๐ณ ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ฐ๐ณ๐ด. ๐๐ถ๐ต ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ป๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ต๐บ๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฏ๐บ ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฏ๐ด ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ข๐จ๐ข๐ช๐ฏ๐ด๐ต ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ, ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฌ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ญ๐ข๐ฅ — ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ฆ๐ค๐ด๐ต๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ค — ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐น๐ค๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ท๐ฆ ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐บ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ต๐ข๐ถ๐จ๐ฉ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ. —Janice Fiamango (retired prof, Univ of Ottawa)
This report is one more piece of the puzzle."
Bill C-8 | openparliament.ca - "Kevin Lamoureux Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons: Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to hear Conservatives make extreme, outlandish claims. The member opposite tries to say that the Liberal Party is going to take away the Internet, take away cellphones and deny people the opportunity to do their banking. The Conservatives have come up with a whole conspiracy theory on how big government is going to take everything away, when the legislation is all about protecting Canadians and protecting the economy. Does the member see any merit in having cybersecurity legislation that would ensure that the interests of Canadians are being served? This includes our economy and economic transactions that take place every day by the thousands. Does he not see the merit in protecting that?
Matt Strauss Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON : Mr. Speaker, I wish this were a conspiracy. I wish the Liberals had the shame to keep it secret. It is open and it is in the bill. Multiple civil society groups have written letters asking them to change this. They are sounding the alarm. The member said I think it is a conspiracy that the Liberals might freeze bank accounts. They already did that; the federal court said it was a violation of charter rights, and they have no response to that. I am asking them to apologize. They should stand up; they have a lot to say. Now would be a terrific time to apologize for violating our charter rights in the last Parliament."
Canada Proud on X - "The Liberals have, in fact, frozen bank accounts during the convoy and actually did wipe news off of Facebook and Instagram with The Online News Act. But you're a "conspiracy theorist" if you notice."
Think Freedom | Facebook - "It still amazes me how many leftists labeled the convoy protest as “violent,” largely because it disrupted the daily routines of government workers and irritated them with nonstop horn honking. Noise, inconvenience, and civil disobedience were treated as proof of violence. Yet those same voices will watch left-wing protests marked by arson, smashed storefronts, burned police cars, and millions in property damage—and still describe them as “mostly peaceful.” That double standard becomes impossible to ignore when you actually look at what happened during the convoy. For weeks, thousands of people gathered in the nation’s capital without widespread rioting, without organized vandalism, and without the chaos typically associated with violent unrest. Families brought children. People handed out food. Strangers shoveled snow together. Bouncy castles appeared in the streets. If violence were truly the intent, the evidence would be undeniable—but it wasn’t there. When you actually look at what happened during the convoy, the claim of violence falls apart even further. For weeks, thousands of people gathered in the nation’s capital without widespread rioting, organized vandalism, or mass assaults. The crowd was remarkably diverse—men and women, young and old, immigrants and multi-generation Canadians, people of different ethnic backgrounds, religions, and political views. Families brought children. Small business owners stood beside union workers. Indigenous flags, Canadian flags, and even pride flags were visible among the crowd. People shared food, helped strangers, shoveled snow together, and looked out for one another. Bouncy castles appeared in the streets. If violence had truly been the goal, the evidence would have been obvious—but instead, what emerged was a protest defined far more by community and cooperation than by aggression. The primary “crime” cited again and again was that the protest was disruptive—loud, inconvenient, and politically uncomfortable. But disruption has always been a defining feature of protest. If inconvenience alone qualifies as violence, then nearly every major protest movement in history would meet that definition. By any objective standard commonly applied elsewhere, the convoy fits far more accurately under the label “mostly peaceful” than many protests that received that phrase from sympathetic media outlets. The difference wasn’t behavior—it was ideology. When a protest aligns with approved political narratives, violence is minimized, rationalized, or ignored. When it challenges state authority or dominant political views, even peaceful resistance is reframed as dangerous extremism. In reality, the convoy exposed how flexible language becomes when politics are involved. What we witnessed wasn’t an outbreak of violence—it was a peaceful, decentralized protest that made people in power uncomfortable. And for some, discomfort is now treated as the same thing as harm."
Left wingers love to justify the chaos of left wing protests by saying protests are supposed to be disruptive. Of course, that's only good when it's protests they approve of
The Dictator and the Truckers: A Grim Sequel - "Besides cracking down on the truckers and their financial supporters, the Prime Minister unleashed his apparatchiks to maliciously persecute a woman who had journeyed across the country to serve as organizer and spokesperson for the truckers. Tamara Lich, an Indigenous grandmother from Alberta, was arrested and charged with the indefinable crimes of “mischief, obstructing police, and counselling others to commit mischief and intimidation.”... The next day a judge decided she was criminally responsible for organizing what was, in fact, a peaceful protest. Lich spent two weeks in jail and was then released on bail with orders not to communicate with anyone associated with the convoy. She was rearrested after attending a Freedom Rally where she was photographed near another person associated with the convoy. After serving another 30 days in prison, she was again released on bail after a different judge ruled that there had been no significant interaction. As this B.C. Prosecution Service information sheet explains: “Persons who are charged with an offence are constitutionally entitled to be released from custody unless Crown counsel is able to justify their continued detention…including consideration of the background of the accused, and the risk to the public.” It is inconceivable that under Canada’s current bail system, Lich could be considered a public risk. Her constitutional rights to the presumption of innocence and to timely access to bail were clearly violated – and this seems to have been deliberate. Meanwhile in Ontario, Randall McKenzie, a habitual offender charged with weapons violations and assaulting a police officer, was last June set free on bail. In contrast to the oppressive bail conditions imposed on the entirely non-violent and non-threatening Lich, and her immediate rearrest on the flimsiest of pretexts, McKenzie was released without major conditions other than periodically reporting to his parole officer. While out on bail, McKenzie then is alleged to have cut off his ankle monitor and committed a slew of additional crimes, culminating just after Christmas in the ambush and murder of Ontario Provincial Police Constable Greg Pierzchala... Incredibly, the Crown prosecutor on her case has stated publicly that he will seek a prison sentence of ten years, something imposed only for very serious violent assaults by habitual criminals – if then."
Inside the Case Against Freedom Convoy’s Tamara Lich and Chris Barber - "While half-a-dozen other charges were later added to the pair’s alleged offences, mischief was the common thread that connected them to the vast majority of other protesters arrested during the crackdown. This prevalence of mischief seems a rather surprising fact. Amidst what was supposedly a massive and violent breakdown in public order, mischief – or counselling others to be mischievous – turned out to be the most serious crime the police could detect. In Ottawa there were no assaults, no murders, no guns or bombs, no fraud or extortion, no rioting and looting, no treason. Nothing, in other words, that might have signalled that an actual (as opposed to imagined or media-manufactured) insurrection was underway or imminent. There was, however, one criminal act that provably did occur in Ottawa during the protests. Two men attempted to set an apartment building’s entryway alight and then sealed the doors shut. This appalling and dangerous act was immediately attributed by some to the protesters. Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, for example, stated it “clearly demonstrates the malicious intent of the protesters occupying our city.” Police soon established, however, that the fire had no link to anyone connected to the Freedom Convoy... According to University of Ottawa law professor Joao Velloso, most mischief charges in Canada are actually quite minor and usually punished without any jail time. Reliance on what he, unlike Spratt, views as a rather insignificant crime as the means to punish Freedom Convoy protesters seems like “a safe, bureaucratic choice for the police”... While outcomes have varied, a clear pattern emerges from a survey of mischief charges laid during the Emergencies Act. Most have been dismissed or returned with a not guilty verdict after only a few days in court. A few – such as Billings’ guilty plea – have resulted in a minor sentence befitting the minor character of the crime itself... By comparison, the trial of Lich and Barber stretched into a 13-month epic, comprising 45 trial days. All for a collection of rather modest mischief and obstruction charges. Why would that be? The answer, according to Ari Goldkind, a high-profile Toronto criminal defence lawyer, lies in the exact thing Wetscher tried so hard to wave away during her concluding statement: politics. “There is no question whatsoever that this is a political trial,” Goldkind states emphatically in an interview. For the Trudeau government to justify its suspension of Canadians’ civil liberties through the Emergencies Act requires an identifiable villain or two. Lich and Barber fit that bill. The length and unprecedented vigour with which the Crown has pursued the pair – Lich especially – as well as the manner in which the trial has dragged on, argues Goldkind, suggest there’s a “prosecutorial vendetta” against them... While the Freedom Convoy was essentially ungovernable, comprised as it was of many disparate groups and publicity-seeking, independent-minded individuals, Lich tried her best to put her own calm and reasonable stamp on the proceedings. Throughout the protest, Lich’s efforts were observably peaceful and without any apparent mal intent... In her dealings with the police, she always tried to find common ground – a fact readily acknowledged by police witnesses during the trial... In her own interactions with the protesters, over whom she had no real control, Lich repeatedly stressed the protest’s peaceful nature and worked tirelessly to rid the movement of disreputable or hateful characters. She even cobbled together a deal with Ottawa mayor Watson to move some trucks out of the downtown area; ironically, that deal went into effect on the same day as the Emergencies Act was invoked... in June 2022 it was announced that Lich had been awarded the annual George Jonas Freedom Award, sponsored by the JCCF. Naturally enough she wanted to go to Toronto to accept the honour in person. But before she could, the Crown came after her yet again. At a court hearing necessitated by the award (since her bail conditions also banned her from setting foot in Ontario), Crown prosecutor Moiz Karimjee argued that simply by accepting the honour, Lich had violated the terms of her bail and should be locked up again. Such an absurdity was quickly brushed aside by the presiding judge, who ruled she could travel to Ontario to attend the celebration, provided she abided by the remainder of her bail restrictions. While there, however, Lich was photographed standing beside another convoy participant, Tom Marrazzo. As she recalls in her book, “Lawyers were standing just outside the frame” when the picture was snapped, in fulfilment of her bail conditions. No matter. When the lawyer-less picture began circulating on social media after she’d returned home, Karimjee issued a Canada-wide arrest warrant in her name. Two homicide detectives were then dispatched from Ottawa to pick Lich up in Medicine Hat; the two burly detectives slapped her in leg shackles for the trip to the Calgary airport. You can’t be too careful with grandmothers... Superior Court Justice Andrew Goodman asked Karimjee if he could name a single mischief case in Canada that had resulted in a 10-year sentence. When Karimjee demurred, Goodman set Lich free once more... In an effort to explain the Crown’s extreme hostility towards her, Lich reveals in her book that prosecutor Karimjee has donated over $17,000 to the federal Liberal Party since 2013 and that his generosity has merited an invitation to at least one “donor appreciation” event with Trudeau himself. Similarly, Bourgeois, the judge who initially denied Lich bail, was once a Liberal candidate in an Ottawa-area riding during the 2011 federal election."
Resistance Theory: The Freedom Convoy’s Place in our Divided History - "former Conservative MP Derek Sloan recalls that when other protesters have come to Ottawa, mainly First Nations officials, “Trudeau would gladly meet them, take a knee, drop the flag to half-mast for months on end, issue endless apologies, and more. But when these honest, hard-working Canadians came to Ottawa, he showed nothing but contempt. [H]e tried to paint them as violent extremists and seditionists.”... And Trudeau is still on the warpath. This is a prime minister, says former Calgary Herald editor David Marsden with considerable justification, who has “never done what most people would consider a full day’s work in his life.”... The son of a former prime minister and the beneficiary of a family trust, he did a stint of substitute teaching and was a snowboard instructor. Not a glowing CV. “The prime minister doesn’t like Alberta,” Marsden continues, “His government policies have been designed to bring the province to its knees. He swallowed the Pollyanna spittle [about green energy saving the world] being peddled by his environment minister,” the ineffable Steven Guilbeault who, along with deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, is part of the figurative three-headed Cerberus that guards the gates of Canada’s political underworld." In essence, Trudeau is the perfect exemplar of the Eastern anointed class, the so-called Laurentian Elite (or Laurentian Consensus), a term coined in its modern sense a dozen years ago by John Ibbitson in the Literary Review of Canada and elaborated in his book, The Big Shift, co-authored with Darrell Bricker. Defined as “the political, academic, cultural, media and business elites” of central-east Canada, the term draws upon the much older “Laurentian School” of thought concerning Canada’s founding structure and originating purpose developed by mainstream (Eastern Canadian) historians like Donald Creighton... Ibbitson acknowledged that the Western provinces had been treated as “semi-colonial possessions” rather than equal members in Confederation. But he thought all had changed. “The West is in,” Ibbitson declared. “In fact, it is in charge.” This was his assessment of the effect of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government – which has proven utterly ephemeral. Harper may have been “Canada’s First Post-Laurentian Prime Minister”, as claimed in this journal, but it was not to last... the equalization drain represents “just a small part of the province’s outsized contribution to confederation in recent years.” It calculates that “the gap between Albertans’ contribution to federal revenues and federal expenditures plus transfers to the province, totalled $20.5 billion annually in 2017/18. And this measure excludes Albertans’ disproportionate cumulative contribution to the Canada Pension Plan, which on net totalled $2.9 billion in 2017.” Meanwhile, as Alberta is being plundered, Justin Trudeau, like his father Pierre, is doing everything in his power to eviscerate Alberta’s energy industry, the source of its prosperity and of Canada’s solvency. Indeed, the recently completed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, shipping oil at last after a horrendous nearly 15-year gestation, is slated to contribute 0.25 percent to Canada’s GDP growth next year – more, indeed, than the entire province of B.C. Leugner concludes, despairingly: “It is my opinion that Canada, as it’s currently structured, is a broken nation.” This from a veteran, much-deployed officer in the Canadian military. The Prairies are Canada’s food and energy breadbasket and have suffered under the rule of Eastern Canada’s Laurentian peerage, particularly with former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s low-pricing, high-taxing National Energy Program (NEP) in 1980, which devastated Alberta’s oil industry and entire economy... Alberta is “the province that carries most of the weight, bears the most pain and has the least say in this mad enterprise.”... This is how we need to understand the truckers’ massive 2022 protest, nominally a form of domestic resistance against the vaccine mandates that crippled their health and their livelihoods, as it did the nation in large. But it is fundamentally an expression of the greater historical context of Eastern political, legislative and market domination of the Western provinciae and the determined response of a long misprized, undervalued and misrepresented sector of the nation, rising up against the metaphorical equivalent of the federal government’s 1885 land grab... Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government introduced and quickly passed the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act in response to proposed federal net-zero electricity grid regulations and other recurring intrusions on the province’s core jurisdictions... As to be expected, the Sovereignty Act has been denounced by all the usual Laurentian suspects and Liberal toadies: the CBC, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and many others. No matter. The aforementioned Barry Cooper places Alberta’s Sovereignty Act in the context of the Prairie provinces’ long struggle for due constitutional recognition and the political equality of their citizens... The federal government has no business intruding on the rights of the provincial domain as guaranteed by the Constitution. But under Trudeau the Younger, that is virtually all it does"
When left wingers screech about Albertan "traitors", they are upset the colonies are revolting. Of course, they don't mind Quebec separatists
