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Freedom Convoy leaders await final court date in long trial after lawyers present final submissions

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

After the trial for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed last week for closing arguments, the court adjourned again until September, and a final verdict is not expected until 2025.

The trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber is slowly ending, with defense lawyers giving their last submissions to the Ottawa courthouse last Friday.

The trial is being overseen by Justice Heather Perkins-McVey. The government (Crown) has claimed that Lich and Barber acted as “co-conspirators” in the Freedom Convoy. Perkins-McVey is expected to give her ruling within a six-month time frame after the final court day, meaning a verdict will likely not come until 2025.

After a five-month hiatus, the trial resumed in an Ottawa courthouse last week for closing arguments. According to The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, the court has adjourned until September 13th, “on which it is expected that the Crown will have a half day to reply.”

Lich’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, noted to the court that there were two distinct things that “made this case different from the 100 legal cases cited by the Crown and defence,” as reported by the TDF.

The first was that “in no case is there a situation where authorities directed protesters to park, then arrested them — to now prosecute the leaders is unprecedented,” the TDF said.

As for the second thing, the TDF observed that “In no case was there an order by another court preserving the right of protesters to peacefully protest. Justice (Hugh) McLean made this clear in his two orders arising from the motion for an injunction. Crown counsel made no reference to this in their submissions. Greenspon said that these judicial orders preserved the right of protesters to protest. And, he noted, these rights are constitutionally entrenched in s2(b) and (c) of the Charter.”

Lich and Barber face 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. In Canada, anyone charged with mischief could face a potential jail sentence of up to 10 years.

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.

The EA controversially allowed the government to freeze the bank accounts of protesters, conscript tow truck drivers, and arrest people for participating in assemblies the government deemed illegal.

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.

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US medical center refusing COVID shots for employees but still promoting to public

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Exert from Medical Musings by Dr. Pierre Kory

Major Covid mRNA policy reversals and awakenings occurred this week within a major U.S health system, a large U.S state, a South American country, and in the UK. The dominoes are starting to fall.

This week a nurse reached out with disturbing descriptions of some major changes she has witnessed inside the Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) system.

OSUMC s a large and comprehensive healthcare organization, with a significant presence in Ohio and a strong focus on research, education, and patient care. It is a massive institution with over 23,000 employees, including:

  • Over 2,000 physicians
  • More than 1,000 residents and fellows
  • Nearly 5,000 nurses

Lets start off with this screenshot of a webpage from OSUMC’s website which provides information to the public as to where they can get Covid-19 vaccines. Check out the highlighted sentence at the bottom of the page:

Wait, what? Ohio State is suddenly no longer offering the Covid-19 vaccine to any of their employees but they are happily offering to inject them into the public? How can such a policy be justified? Why was this change in policy done and why was it done so quietly?

Let’s get this straight. Ohio State’s leadership is now making an institutional decision that employees should not be offerred access to any Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. I am (pretending to be) confused. I mean, if the vaccines could protect patients from being infected by staff members and they were safe to give to staff members, why wouldn’t you do everything possible (like a mandate) to ensure they receive them?

The only possible reason for the action above is that either OSUMC leadership recently discovered that the vaccines: a) do not work or b) are not safe. I think you would agree that, of the two possible answers, the only one that makes sense to explain this abrupt change in policy is B) they are not safe. I say this because if they were safe but instead just didn’t really work very well, Ohio State would not have the incentive to divorce themselves so abruptly and strongly from the recommendations of our benevolent federal government. I believe such an action would pretty quickly and negatively impact federal research funding by the NIH. It is my belief that agency’s money kept the nations 126 major academic medical centers in line throughout Covid, as those CEO’s and Deans are well aware that NIH retaliation in terms of rejecting grant funding if they “dissent” is real and happens (inflated reimbursements from the gov’t was another one of course).

I asked the brave browser AI, “why is Ohio State Medical Center no longer offering Covid-19 vaccines to its employees?” Two sentences jumped out:

  • “Based on the provided search results, it appears that Ohio State Medical Center did offer COVID-19 vaccines to its employees at one point.”
  • “Without further information or clarification from Ohio State Medical Center, it’s difficult to provide a definitive answer on why they may not be offering COVID-19 vaccines to their employees.”

So it must be the case that Ohio State leadership somehow found themselves a stronger financial disincentive to subjecting employees to Covid-19 vaccine injection. Where would such a disincentive come from? Answer: lawsuits. I also suspect that fear of worsening staff shortages from disability and/or death further disrupting operations played a role as well (as you will learn below).

This new policy action (taken very quietly) is absolutely dam breaking to me in terms of progress towards the truth about the mRNA platform getting out to the public. It is also appears ethically reprehensible, i.e. the institution made the decision to keep jabbing the public with a toxic and lethal vaccine while becoming aware that same vaccine is either exposing them to unmanageable legal risks and/or is disrupting their operations by negatively impacting the health of their workforce. Welcome to dystopia.

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Trial for Freedom Convoy leaders ends, verdict may take 6 months

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

In her concluding statements last Friday in an Ottawa courthouse, presiding judge Heather Perkins-McVey said that she does ‘not know’ when a decision will be rendered in the Freedom Convoy leaders’ trial.

The trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, which was supposed to have been only 16 days long, has now concluded after over a year, with the presiding judge observing that determining a verdict, which could take up to six months, will be “daunting” task.  

In her concluding statements last Friday in an Ottawa courthouse, presiding judge Heather Perkins-McVey said that she does “not know” when she will “be in a position to give my decision,” adding that coming up with a verdict will be “a little daunting.” 

The judge has promised that on November 26, she will be providing an update as to when a decision could be forthcoming.  

The trial has been ongoing for over one year and began on September 3, 2023. As reported by LifeSiteNews, both Lich and Barber face a possible 10-year prison sentence for their role in the 2022 Freedom Convoy.

In an X post on Friday, Lich shared her thoughts on the trial finally wrapping up.  

“Well, that’s a wrap to the Longest Mischief Trial of All Time,” she wrote. 

“The Crown really disappointed me today. His remarks about the Event That Shall Not Be Named (Freedom Convoy) being nothing more than a weekend party are indicative of a level of smugness and elitism that I can never and will never understand,” added Lich.

Both Lich and Barber had attended the hearings in person, travelling from their homes in Alberta and Saskatchewan respectively. Last Friday, however, they attended via video.

The Crown prosecution has held steadfast to the notion 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. 

It has also been 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 reality is that Lich and Barber collaborated with police on many occasions so that the protest remained law abiding.  

The Democracy Fund, which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, noted in one of its last legal updates of the trial that it expected the Crown would try to prove the leaders were “co-conspirators,” meaning that accusations placed against one leader automatically apply to the other.

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. 

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