U.S. citizens: Demand Congress investigate soaring excess death rates
OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – The trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed Wednesday for a three-day stint in an Ottawa courthouse and their lawyers argued that video statements made by the leaders should be allowed as “evidence of the truth.”
The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, noted that the day began with Lich’s and Barber’s lawyers “arguing that certain videos and statements made by Ms. Lich should be admitted as evidence of the truth of their contents under a hearsay exception” and the “complete evidence rule.”
Thus far, the government has asserted “that the absence of violence or peaceful nature of the protest didn’t make it lawful, emphasizing that the onus was on the Crown to prove the protest’s unlawfulness.”
The government has held steadfast to the notion in trying to prove that Lich and Barber somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words as part of a co-conspiracy. This claim has been rejected by the defense as weak.
The reality is that Lich and Barber collaborated with police on many occasions so that the protests were within the law.
Eric Granger, Lich’s counsel, suggested to the court that it would not be fair for the Crown to “cherry pick” and “inculpatory statements and videos.”
Granger argued that “case law allows a court to consider the entirety of statements if they are so related as to comprise a single narrative,” the TDF mentioned.
In response, the Crown noted that the defence is “seeking to have statements admitted for the truth of their contents that are hearsay and are not, in fact, so related that they form a single narrative,” the TDF said.
Diane Magas, Barber’s counsel, observed that as the Crown has charged her client with counseling mischief, as “part of this,” they must prove the “actus reus” or guilty act.”
“This guilty act is composed of the spoken words, evidenced by the statements and videos,” the TDF noted.
Magas also pointed to the exculpatory statements of her client that “should be admitted in addition to those statements that the Crown claims are inculpatory.”
The trial, presided over by Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, will go until March 15. LifeSiteNews has been covering the trial extensively since it began last year.
The trial resumed for one day last week for only the second court date since the new year, with Perkins-McVey deciding to dismiss an application by the Freedom Convoy leaders that asked the court to throw out so-called conspiracy charges.
Lich and Barber are facing multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.
Besides the ongoing trial, Lich and Barber and a host of others recently filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Trudeau government for its use of the Emergencies Act (EA) to quash the Freedom Convoy in 2022.
In early 2022, thousands of Canadians from coast to coast came to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14.
During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.
U.S. citizens: Demand Congress investigate soaring excess death rates