COVID-19
$290 million lawsuit against Freedom Convoy participants designed to silence expression

From the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
This lawsuit also seeks damages from citizens who donated to the peaceful protest.
Lawyers on behalf of Chris Barber, Tamara Lich, and other Freedom Convoy participants argue that the $290 million class action against them is designed to silence their expression–expression the public had an interest in hearing [Image by Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images]
OTTAWA, ON: The Justice Centre announces that lawyers representing Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and other defendants against a class-action lawsuit brought by Zexi Li and other Ottawa residents will be in court this Thursday, December 14, 2023. Tamara Lich and the other defendants have filed an application to dismiss Zexi Li’s $290 million class action as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP)–a lawsuit designed to silence the expression of peaceful protesters.
In February 2022, Ottawa residents Zexi Li and Geoffrey Delaney, Happy Goat Coffee Company, and a local union commenced a $290 million class-action lawsuit against Chris Barber, Tamara Lich, and other Freedom Convoy participants, seeking damages against peaceful protesters for allegedly causing a nuisance. This lawsuit also seeks damages from citizens who donated to the peaceful protest.
Anti-SLAPP legislation serves to protect defendants against “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (SLAPP)–lawsuits designed to silence a defendant’s freedom of expression through threats of damages or costs. Anti-SLAPP motions are designed to end such lawsuits and are available to a defendant in any proceeding against them. Once an anti-SLAPP motion has been filed, the defendant must demonstrate that the proceeding against them arises from their expression that “relates to a matter of public interest.” If the defendant can demonstrate that their expression does relate to a matter of public interest, the plaintiff must then demonstrate that their lawsuit has “substantial merit” and that the defendant has no valid defence. A judge must then weigh the importance of the expression at stake against the importance of the plaintiff’s allegations of harm.
Lawyers in the Justice Centre network argue that the proceedings against Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and others do, in fact, arise from their expression. Donating to and participating in the Freedom Convoy amounted to an expression of support for the protest, and of disagreement with the Government of Canada’s response to Covid–matters of public interest. Further, lawyers argue that Zexi Li’s class-action lawsuit contains factual and legal weaknesses; it is not obvious that the proceeding against the defendants has “substantial merit.” Finally, lawyers argue that the defendants do have valid defences and that the value of the expression at issue outweighs the allegations of nuisance against them.
On Thursday, December 14, 2023, the parties will proceed to oral argument at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, arguing that the plaintiffs’ entire class-action lawsuit is, in fact, a SLAPP action disguised as a nuisance claim and that the lawsuit is merely intended to punish the defendants for participating in the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest. If successful, all or part of the class-action lawsuit will be dismissed.
Lawyer James Manson stated, “Zexi Li’s lawsuit engages the very purpose that ‘anti-SLAPP’ legislation was designed to address: an attempt to silence peaceful expression, and the right of defendants to participate in public debate.”
John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre, stated “The fundamental Charter freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly must be vigorously protected and defended, whether they are attacked directly by government or indirectly through a misguided civil action.”
COVID-19
Maxime Bernier slams Freedom Convoy leaders’ guilty verdict, calls Canada’s justice system ‘corrupt’

From LifeSiteNews
The leader of the People’s Party of Canada says Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were victims of a ‘political witch hunt.’
The leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) ripped Thursday’s federal court ruling that found Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber guilty of mischief, saying the court siding with the government amounted to a “political witch hunt.”
“It is disheartening to learn that two of the heroes of the Freedom Convoy, @LichTamara and @ChrisBarber1975, have been found guilty of mischief in the longest and one of the costliest trials in Canadian history,” Maxime Bernier wrote Thursday on X.
“This clearly was a political witch hunt.”
Bernier added that in his view the reality is that Canada’s justice system is “corrupt.”
“Trudeau and his ministers who illegally invoked the Emergencies Act and violated basic rights will go unpunished,” he noted.
“Our justice system is corrupt to the bones.”
On Thursday, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, the federal judge overseeing the mischief trial, delivered her verdict, finding both Lich and Barber guilty of mischief.
Perkins-McVey seemed to agree with the Crown’s case that Lich and Barber’s influence on the Freedom Convoy constituted public mischief but did dismiss the Crown’s Carter Application accusing Lich and Barber of conspiracy outright.
Lich and Barber both faced six charges each, those being charges of mischief, obstruction, intimidation, and counseling others to commit mischief and intimidation. After the court reconvened Thursday afternoon, Lich was acquitted of four of her six charges, with the fifth charge, counseling to commit mischief, being stayed by the judge.
As for Barber, the court found him guilty of mischief as a principal offender and as an aider and abettor. It also found him guilty on the charge of violating a court order.
As for sentencing, the court will reconvene on April 16 at 1:30 p.m. EST, at which time it will say when a date and time for sentencing will be held.
Lich and Barber both face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews has reported extensively on their trial.
The Lich and Barber trial concluded in September 2024, more than a year after it began. It was only originally scheduled to last 16 days.
Lich and Barber were arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa for their roles in leading the popular Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates. During COVID, Canadians were subjected to vaccine mandates, mask mandates, extensive lockdowns and even the closure of churches.
Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.” During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.
COVID-19
Trump’s new NIH head fires top Fauci allies and COVID shot promoters, including Fauci’s wife

From LifeSiteNews
“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X. “Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.
On day one of his new job as head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya removed four powerful agency heads, including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, and others associated with the questionable handling of the COVID-19 shots.
Grady, who had served as chief of the agency’s Department of Bioethics, and other longtime Fauci allies in top posts at the NIH involved in the development and distribution of the untested COVID shots produced by Big Pharma were offered jobs in Alaska and other remote locales far away from the NIH’s sprawling Bethesda, Maryland, complex just outside Washington, D.C.
The purge came amid massive layoffs in health-related agencies under the umbrella of Health and Human Services (HHS), now headed by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned vaccine safety and American medicine’s focus on treating disease rather than preventing it.
A total of about 20,000 personnel – mostly bureaucrats – or about 25 percent of the HHS workforce have been or will be handed pink slips amid Kennedy’s realignment of the agency.
MAHA critics were quick to call Tuesday’s axing of Fauci confederates as “one of the darkest days in modern scientific history” fueled by Kennedy’s desire to exact revenge on Fauci’s former trusted associates who represent the antithesis of the MAHA movement.
However, the revamping of the federal government’s side of the health industry is no more harsh than the treatment meted out by those formerly in control who, at best, suppressed, and worst, punished those who questioned their iron grip on health-industry regulations and standards.
For years, Kennedy’s critics have dismissed his quest to revamp healthcare and his questioning of the efficacy of the COVID-19 mRNA jabs as anti-science, labeling him as an “anti-vaxxer” in order to suppress his messaging.
Dr. Francis Collins – whom Bhattacharya replaced as head of NIH – in an October 2020 email to Fauci condemned Bhattacharya as a “fringe epidemiologist” because he had co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized harmful COVID lockdown policies.
“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X.
“Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.
“We spend 4X more than Italy on healthcare — and live 7 years less. Dead last in cancer rates. This isn’t science — it’s a system profiting off sick kids,” explained Calley Means, RFK Jr. HHS advisor during an interview with Laura Ingraham following the NIH firings.
“Firing the people who oversaw this? That’s step one,” declared Means.
Other NIH officials who were offered reassignments were Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Fauci as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Clifford Lane, a close Fauci ally who served as deputy director for clinical research at NIAID, and Dr. Emily Erbelding, NIAID’s microbiology and infectious diseases director.
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