CONVOY TRIAL DIARY: DAY FIVE
Working from Home Edition
Chris Barber and his wife yesterday, after a weekend away from court.
Took the train home Friday with a plan to return early this week that so far has been thwarted by a re-write of an important C-19 science film we are doing. Undaunted, I did a review this morning of trusted sources, namely Canadian Press for quotes (legacy media is permitted to record the proceedings for accuracy), Democracy Fund and Rebel News for general tone and sidebars, plus my own insider info. I do miss the courtroom, however. I enjoy watching the system in action — when it is working and even when it is not. I’m neutral about the Ottawa proceedings despite the Crown’s organizational difficulties.
Regardless of the outcome, it is the best we’ve got and like religion, its weaknesses are wrought by the humans who administer it. It does favour the rich and outcomes aren’t always fair - but what’s the alternative? As I’ve said, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey seems able and fair — which guarantees nothing but is comforting to observe.
In the case of the truckers, given prosecutorial and police discretion, it would have made more sense that no charges be laid or that they be dropped, following the POEC. But here we are. Sadly, the trial is happening in a city whose former mayor and police chief were hostile to the convoy to say the least. Jim Watson got the GoFundMe shut down on fake stories of violence and Peter Sloly is likely the person responsible for the don’t give an inch instruction to OPS when dealing with convoy representatives.
During the protest, I obtained an audio tape of the Ontario Provincial Police dealing with a convoy road captain and the level of mutual respect and cooperation was admirable. No hostility at all. Just two people trying to get it done.
And of course Ottawa is the home to PMJT who acted not like a statesman managing a crisis for his people but rather as a smear-narrative politician, whose loyalty was to a poorly tested vaccine and the globalists who pushed mandates even for those with no C-19 risk.
I can’t repeat this enough — we would not be here now if only he had treated the truckers and their supporters like citizens with a grievance instead of far-right crazies not worthy of his time or attention. Meanwhile, he has been over in India telling everyone all about his commitment to democracy, free speech and the right to object — at the exact moment two of his citizens are on trial for a peaceful protest outside his front door.
Trudeau’s trip has been a disaster. This entire piece is worth a read. Despite what his supporters in Ottawa and elsewhere might think, our prime minister has become an international laughing stock. No amount of media massaging and colourful socks can change that now.
From the Indian perspective, there is a veritable chasm between PM Trudeau’s actions and words, as well as between different words that he says at different times. Therefore, when he said that Canada would always defend certain freedoms, the Indians were understandably livid. Mr. Trudeau, along with his cabinet & caucus colleagues as well as his supporters in the public and the media can justify the invocation of the Emergency Act until the cows come home, but most Indians aren’t buying those justifications, especially when they see Mr. Trudeau’s statements about the farmers’ protests in India as inappropriate meddling in India’s internal affairs. That kind of hypocrisy (as they see it) has to evoke a sharp response.
Canadian media is mostly talking about the PM’s plane being stuck in India, and come Wednesday, they will likely move on to the Liberal caucus retreat in London, ON. But the Indian media is under no such compulsion. They will keep chewing Mr. Trudeau up and spitting him out.
Trudeau and Indian Prime Minister Modi — Not Happy Together
Meanwhile, the lawyers for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber argued to prevent the Crown from calling some Ottawa residents as witnesses, including Zexi Li, a young federal civil servant who has become famous in the media for being the face of a massive class action suit against Barber, Lich and others. From Canadian Press.
“This is not the trial of the Freedom Convoy,” Lich’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, told the court Monday, in a sentiment he’s raised so often in the first week of trial that it has become all but a catchphrase for the defence team.
The Crown has an entirely different view of the case.
“This is ultimately a trial about what happened in this city” during the protest, and what role Lich and Barber played in that, Crown attorney Siobhain Wetscher said.
The Crown plans to call five Ottawa residents as witnesses in the case to describe what they saw and experienced during the convoy protest. That includes Zexi Li, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the organizers on behalf of people who live and work in downtown Ottawa.
(The Judge) asked if the alleged public urination and littering was at all connected to the defendants, whether the exhaust fumes could be attributed to vehicles associated with the Freedom Convoy, law enforcement, or general motorists, and the possible transient nature of alleged obstructions to the witnesses' properties.
The judge also noted that evidence and testimony presented by the prosecution contradicted the Crown's characterization of the protests as "anything but peaceful." She recalled a video montage presented by the prosecution last week, emphasizing that the only violence captured in footage was of an officer punching a demonstrator.
She also cited a police officer's testimony that no violence was directed at police officers from Freedom Convoy demonstrators.
Perkins-McVey responded to the Crown's description of her role as a "gatekeeper" overseeing the trial.
"It's going to be a very tight gate, with a lot of locks on the gate," she stated, "if I allow the witnesses to testify."
On Friday, I watched as a convoy news conference, from February 2022, headed by Tom Marazzo, rolled out across the courtroom screens. More than once, Marazzo asked that someone open negotiations with them — because they were ready to go home. Instead they got frozen bank accounts and black-block-dressed police on horseback in scenes that shamed the country. All of it ordered by the same person who spent last week in India banging on about freedom and democracy.
Can’t make this stuff up folks.
Stay critical.
I had to laugh out loud when I read in the paper that while other dignitaries and world leaders were picked up from the airport in limos, Modi sent an old Toyota Range Rover for Trudeau. Our PM, suffers from severe cognitive dissonance, if he cannot see the hypocrisy in defending the Sikh's right to protest in Canada, after what he did to the Freedom Convoy -- and continues to do as Tamara and Chris's futures remain in limbo. He doesn't seem to remember how members of the Europian Parliament called him out for coming to preach to them about the importance of demoncracy, while he was just fresh off of acting as a tyranical dictator over his own people. And now he gets it double barrelled in India and deservedly so. His plane breaking down and making stay an extra day or to in the country that reviles him, including their own PM - is poetic justice.
We can't make this stuff up but apparently the Government and their lackies can.