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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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COVID-19

Tamara Lich and Chris Barber trial update: The Longest Mischief Trial of All Time continues..

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Here are the last two posts on Tamara Lich’s Substack posted April 16 and April 17:

April 17: 

We weren’t able to secure a date yesterday for the sentencing hearing and instead another ‘speak to’ was set for April 28. In addition to time needed to enter numerous impact statements (coincidentally and conveniently comprised of individuals suing us for $300,000,000.00), the Crown has added a forfeiture order to seize Big Red which will add significant time to argue. Therefore I suspect all parties will need to find 4-5 days in their schedules for the sentencing hearing.

The Crown is also seeking two years in federal prison for each of us.

Three days were tentatively set aside at the end of May for a Stay of Proceedings application put forth yesterday by Ms. Magus on Chris’ behalf.

And so The Longest Mischief Trial of All Time continues to plod along, still no end in sight.

 

April 16:

In our trial, the longest mischief trial of all time, we set hearing dates to set hearing dates.

There will be a ‘speak to’ this afternoon to set a date for the sentencing hearing which we think will take 3-4 days. Following that hearing, Chris and I will return to Ottawa again for the actual sentence.

The Crown is seeking 2 years in a federal penitentiary for both of us, plus they have decided to file an application to confiscate Big Red. Funny, there hasn’t been a single other convoy case in which the Crown demanded that persons property or vehicle, yet they seem to want Big Red. You need to ask yourself why.

Chris raised his children in that truck, changed their diapers in that truck, had his old dog, Buddy, put to sleep in the passenger seat when his time came because that was Buddy’s favourite place in the world.

This is not about the rule of law.

It’s about crushing a Canadian symbol of Hope, Pride & Unity

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COVID-19

Canadian student denied religious exemption for COVID jab takes tech school to court

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is helping Philip Anisimov fight Ontario Tech University, which this week has to defend in court its decision to deregister the student.

An Ontario university student who was kicked out of school after his religious-based COVID vaccine exemption request was rejected is in court to argue his civil rights were violated.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is helping Philip Anisimov fight Ontario Tech University, which this week has to defend in court its decision to deregister the student for choosing not to receive the experimental, abortion-tainted COVID shots on religious grounds.

According to a press release from the JCCF, yesterday, April 15, and today, April 16, Anisimov’s legal team will be making arguments in an Ontario court that the university “violated his right to be free from discrimination on the basis of his religion.”

“The University tried to characterize Mr. Anisimov’s belief as a personal preference by arguing that vaccination is not truly contrary to his faith,” noted constitutional lawyer Hatim Kheir.

“Decision-makers are not permitted to engage in speculation and theological debates about which dogma is correct. So long as a belief is religious in nature and sincerely held, it must be accommodated,” Kheir explained, outlining how the Human Rights Code of the province has to be interpreted according to the law.

Anisimov’s case goes back to August 30, 2021, when Ontario, under the direction of its Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Kieran Moore, mandated that all students in the province show proof of vaccination unless they have an exemption or agree to attend a COVID jab education session boasting about the shots.

However, the third option was not available at Ontario Tech University, as the government mandate allowed schools to chose whether or not they would offer such a program to students.

As a result, Anisimov, who had requested accommodation for religious reasons but was denied, was deregistered from all his courses.

He was then forced to spend an entire extra year to complete his studies. According to his lawyers, Ontario Tech University’s decision to not approve his COVID jab exemption request “not only disrupted his career plans but also violated his right to be free from discrimination on the basis of religion, as protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

“Mr. Anisimov has a sincere religious objection to the COVID vaccines and could have been accommodated without difficulty,” he added.

COVID vaccine mandates, as well as lockdowns, which came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.

Beyond health concerns, many Canadians, especially Catholics, opposed the vaccines on moral grounds because of their link to fetal cell lines derived from the tissue of aborted babies.

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