The Government Is Trying To Bully Tamara Lich and Chris Barber With New Charges

Unable to perpetually deny Tamara Lich bail, the Canadian federal government has taken to legally bullying her and Freedom Convoy co-organizer Chris Barber with a pile of more serious and frivolous charges.

If you remember, Lich and Barber were originally charged by the Crown with “counseling to commit mischief” which is a charge obviously manufactured by the Crown’s legal team as an excuse to have Lich and Barber arrested. 

Now those two Freedom Convoy organizers, in a new round of charges, are being accused of mischief, counseling mischief, obstructing police, counseling to obstruct police, counseling intimidation, and intimidation by blocking and obstructing highways.

It cannot be emphasized enough how weak these charges are; they are based on the dual false premises that the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa was unlawful and that the convoy organizers were in direct control of what occurred on the ground. 

It is also worth mentioning that all the reasons for the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, which allowed them to arrest people for frivolous made-up charges, have been debunked. FINTRAC has said there were no money laundering or terrorism concerns. The myth that the convoy was a foreign-funded occupation was retracted quietly by the CBC. The obviously false arson story being part of the convoy was finally dispelled by Ottawa police, and yesterday the police admitted there were no guns found among the convoy.

Despite every accusation against Tamara Lich, Chris Barber, and the Freedom Convoy being categorically false, the government seems to be doubling down on its authoritarian push. The answer as to why likely has to do with a flaw in the current legal framework. One common tactic that the government can use to destroy its opponents here is to pile on more and more serious charges knowing that they will never get a conviction. 

The goal would be to wear down Chris Barber and Tamara Lich both mentally and financially to plead guilty to one frivolous charge that would carry almost no penalty and pretend the plea is reflective of the strength of the government’s case. 

This would allow the government to save face and their enablers in the media to misrepresent the situation by saying things like “Convoy organizers who have been accused of domestic terrorism have pleaded guilty to charges against them today”.

This entire saga is a prime exhibit of the joint failure of the Trudeau government and the legacy media, if either of them had any inclination towards the truth or respect for civil liberties then none of this would have had to happen. Instead, they continue to double down on all their worst impulses.