Retired judge says Freedom Convoy organizers on trial represent all opponents to current government

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

Hold the line

The marathon trial of Tamara Lich has resumed. This is definitely the most high-profile trial in Canada in years. Millions of our tax dollars have been spent to prosecute this Métis grandmother (and Chris Barber). Seasoned prosecutors have been seconded, and all of the resources of both the federal and Ontario governments have been employed to get a conviction. Seemingly at any cost.

So, the charges must be extremely serious? Surely, we are talking about some deadly terrorist attack, or something that involves multiple murders and mayhem – at the least!

Well…, no. That tiny, polite grandmother is charged, essentially, with……. mischief.

Mischief? Isn’t that a charge that is usually used to deal with a kid spray-painting graffiti on a wall, or an inebriated fellow doing something foolish while under the influence?

Not so, in the case of Tamara. They are going after her with everything at their disposal. They are pulling out all the stops – spending millions of dollars of our money to nail this gentle, former physical fitness trainer and bookkeeper on a tarted-up charge of mischief. They seem determined to make an example of her.

But an example of what? Here’s my answer: An example of what will happen to any of us if we express views that the government in power does not like -what our Prime Minister refers to as “unacceptable views” that conflict with his progressive vision. They aren’t just going after Tamara; they are going after us.

If you doubt this, think of any protest in memory that has the support of progressives, where any of the organizers have been prosecuted so vigorously just to teach that person a lesson.

After all, there are no shortage of protests. We have had dozens of indigenous, BLM, climate, and Palestinian protests in recent years. Every large protest attracts some undesirables, who participate in violence and mayhem. The BLM and antifa protests – the one our PM actively participated in despite all of his lockdown rules then in place – toppled statues and did much property damage. Surely at least one of the Canadian protest organizers could have been charged, as Tamara was. Not so.

But the vast majority of the people participating in these large protests simply want to make their point. That’s the purpose of protests. They allow people to have their say, and let off steam. Our western liberal democracies allow such things. In fact, without active citizen participation, our liberal democracies would wither and die. Citizens of liberal democracies must be free to peacefully protest when they feel the need to do so. Democratic governments must be robust enough to tolerate protests, and other forms of dissent.

In the trucker convoy protest the main point that the protesters wanted to make was about government overreach. They believed that the government reaction to the nasty Covid virus was extreme and overdone. The final straw was the imposition of a vaccine mandate on truckers at a time when everyone knew that the vaccine did not prevent a person from either becoming infected with, or transmitting, the virus. When the Trudeau government imposed its vaccine mandate this was known with certainty. The protestors were aware of that, and suspected that the decision to impose an unnecessary mandate was purely political. They insisted on their right to make a personal choice about what went into their bodies, and argued that the vaccine mandate was a denial of their basic freedoms. They wanted to state their case to the prime minister about it. But he had no time for them.

That’s what the convoy protest was all about. It was just one of many protests any liberal democracy has had, are having, and will have in the future.

But in how many of those protests do we find a Tamara – namely one person singled out as a sacrificial lamb? Shackled, dumped in a filthy cell, forced to share that cell with a mentally unstable person, and without even a book to read. And then hauled back and forth to court to be yelled at by openly hostile prosecutors. Followed by a year long trial. For a mischief charge. (Lich describes her ordeal in “Hold the Line.”

The answer is that where progressives rule – that’s here, folks – this only happens to people with “unacceptable views”. The authorities in progressive-run administrations only go after conservatives, because those are the people with “unacceptable views”. They leave progressives alone. Justin Trudeau will “take a knee” in protests he agrees with – but will bring the hammer down with thundering force on any “unacceptable fringe view” that he doesn’t like. Hamas protesters appear to be able do virtually whatever they want – even confining Jewish citizens to “ghettos”, and yelling vile, antisemitic slurs at them. The authorities will simply let it pass. Like Sergeant Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes” they “see nussing”.

But if you happen to drive a truck, and insist on your right to decide what drugs will be injected into your body, you are fair game. There will be no shortage of police chiefs and other government officials willing to go after you.

That’s where we are now, with the trial in its final stages. There’s a good chance that Tamara will be acquitted. She is in front of an experienced and independent judge, and the evidence against her is contrived.

But there are many lesser-known people prosecuted during the lockdown and convoy protest who do not have Tamara’s high profile that gives her the ability to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars she has needed to defend herself. Many ordinary Canadians have been convicted of offences relating to the lockdown and convoy protests for the simple reason that they couldn’t afford the time and money to defend themselves against often unfair charges.

Something similar is happening in Britain right now, where widespread dissatisfaction with government failure to limit and regulate mass immigration – particularly of immigrants who have no intention of integrating- has resulted in both protests, and out-of-control rioting. Mass immigration, like lockdown legislation, is a topic on which conservatives and progressives tend to disagree sharply. The Starmer government’s one-sided reaction to the protests and riots – as in the case of our lockdown regulations and convoy protest – is causing both unfairness and injustice for many ordinary Brits. There is general agreement that the thugs who participated in violence in the riots deserve their fate, and are rightly being jailed. But the vast majority of ordinary Brits, who are appalled at what uncontrolled immigration is doing to their country, are being silenced by threats of prosecution and jail.

People are being prosecuted simply for making intemperate comments on social media. Some who did not even participate in the protests are being jailed.

Those Britons are receiving the same threat that our prime minister has given to us – if you have an “unacceptable view” you had better not share it. Leaders, like Starmer and Trudeau, who choose to shame and silence half of their populations are playing with fire. They can only survive by becoming increasingly authoritarian.

Their brute message takes many forms. “Two tier policing” is one – namely, the police treating lockdown, or immigration protestors in a completely different way than they do pro-Hamas or BLM type protestors. “Lawfare” is another – weaponizing the law to go after those you disagree with. The Online Harms Act pushed by the Trudeau government will do exactly that. All involve the bullying of people who do not agree with the progressive views now in fashion.

These illiberal tactics threaten the rule of law that has evolved in western civilization through Magna Carta, and on to the present. The rule of law is fragile, and it is not compatible with opportunistic politicians who tamper with it by weaponizing the law to crush dissent, and to destroy their enemies. Those leaders risk seriously damaging our basic institutions with their cynical experiments in authoritarianism.

Canada, like Britain, also sees tension rising over the immigration issue. Most Canadians welcome controlled immigration. But they want immigrants who intend to integrate into the Canadian mosaic. This issue will become increasingly contentious, and Canadians who are opposed to what the current federal government is doing with immigration must be allowed to voice their opposition. That opposition includes the right to protest peacefully.

We are going to see many contentious issues arise over the next few decades. It is very likely that the government of the day will not like some of the views that are voiced by dissenters. The point is that Canadians must have the right to peacefully present their views, as Tamara Lich has done, without being treated the way dissidents are in authoritarian regimes. Conservative thinkers must not allow themselves to be intimidated into silence by progressives.

And we must be able to rely on our courts to protect those rights. The courts largely failed to protect the freedoms of lockdown dissenters in the COVID years. This has to change, or our individual freedoms will not be worth the paper they are written on. Overreaching governments must be held to account.

There is much to think about as the longest and most expensive mischief trial in Canadian history finally heads to its conclusion. The trial judge will tell Tamara if she is guilty or not guilty. But the Trudeau and Ford government are effectively on trial as well. Was their treatment of this one small lady something that should happen here? Is this what Canada has become? The Lich decision has the potential to be an important turning point for this country.

Tamara Lich did not lie down in front of a tank. She did not spend years in the Gulag. But she has been treated shabbily by the Trudeau and Ford governments. And in her gentle and respectful response to this Big Brother bullying she has taught us something. It is this: Stand up for your beliefs. Hold the line.

At some point the Trudeau Liberals will be relegated to the history books. What will they be remembered for? Trudeau’s imposition of The Emergency Act will certainly be on the top of that list. That is – without doubt – one of the low points in the history of this great country. But surely, the trial of Tamara Lich will be right up there on that list as well. A polite Métis grandmother, imprisoned and relentlessly persecuted for daring to stand up for what she believes in, has become an inspiration for those of us who cherish freedom.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Trump’s Executive Orders Are Taking Massive Chunk Out Of Censorship State

Published on January 31, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Roderick Law

President Donald Trump has hit the ground running, issuing a flurry of executive orders. Two of them are particularly welcome.

The first, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” mandates agencies across the government cease funding and end any activities that would “unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” The other, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” requires agencies “to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”

Each order is necessary, and their issuance so soon after the inauguration shows that Trump understands that censorship and “lawfare” were rampant under his predecessor.

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Former President Joe Biden himself (or whoever gave him words to read) gave us a stark reminder of his comfort with censorship in his farewell address, when he warned of the “potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country.”

But Biden was referring to the rise of social media that do not enforce speech codes dictated by one side of the political divide. He went on to complain that we are getting “buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation,” while “[s]ocial media is giving up fact-checking.”

It’s true: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg saw the election results and realized public toleration for censorship has reached its limit. He is dismantling Facebook’s “fact checking” apparatus and following X’s “community notes” model.

Worse, Zuckerburg is telling tales out of school, recalling how during the pandemic Biden officials would “scream” and “curse” at Facebook employees to remove posts that countered the government line. Tech-industrial complexes are dangerous things if you do not control them.

We can’t forget that government censorship, and its support for research into censorship technologies, is broad and deep. Consider the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The committee was composed of academics and tech company officials working very closely with government personnel. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) discovered they also worked with left-wing activists. The committee was created ostensibly in response to misinformation campaigns from foreign actors, but it evolved toward domestic “threats.” It had a “Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-information” subcommittee. “Mal-information” is info that is true, but contrary to the preferred narratives of the censor. Trump’s order directly calls such efforts a “guise” to censor speech “in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.” Unfortunately, the committee was the tip of the iceberg. The Pentagon and the State Department had their own ties to censorship initiatives.

The same impulse that fostered censorship weaponized Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice(DOJ). Ask pro-life activists facing prison sentences for peaceful demonstrations outside abortion clinics.

Going back further, talk to parents who, FGI discovered, were called racist and transphobic by teachers unions and the Biden Education Department. Or the concerned parents who dared to speak up in school board meetings around the country. Their reward was being called a threat and singled out by the DOJ and FBI. We can be thankful to whoever it was that leaked the FBI memo recommending infiltrating Catholic Mass enthusiast cells.

Trump’s executive order on weaponization will hopefully right some of these wrongs and remind the DOJ and intelligence services that they work for the people. (The president also stripped security clearances from the 51 former intelligence officials who, without evidence, dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a “Russian information operation.”) If nothing else, it will make clear to all, no matter their party, that there are no grey areas and no workarounds when it comes to fundamental constitutional rights.

The federal government has strayed far from its purpose of securing the God-given rights of its citizens. Trump received a mandate from the voters to move it back to the true path, and these orders bring vital reforms. Ideally, Congress will follow suit and pass legislation doing the same, but permanently. As Americans, it is the least we should expect from our government.

Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative.

Brownstone Institute

Information Disorder Syndrome

Published on January 30, 2025

Todayville

From the Brownstone Institute

By Robert Malone

Information disorder is a term coined in 2017 in a report titled “Information Disorder Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policymaking” that was drafted for the Council of Europe. (Derakhshan & Hossein, 2017). Information disorder refers to the sharing or developing of false information, categorized as misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Of interest, the original 2016 election of President Trump triggered the commission of this report.

From the report:

This concept has been further developed by think tanks, academics, NGOs, governments, and others now invested in the vast fact-checking and industrial-censorship complex. We have all become well-versed in these concepts over the past few years.

A 2020 peer-reviewed study took this concept further and made information disorder into a mental health condition.

Abstract:

Many of us may be unknowingly suffering from information disorder syndrome. It is more prevalent due to the digitized world where the information flows to every individual’s phone, tablet and computer in no time. Information disorder syndrome is the sharing or developing of false information with or without the intent of harming and they are categorized as misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.

The severity of the syndrome is categorized into three grades. Grade 1 is a milder form in which the individual shares false information without the intent of harming others. Grade 2 is a moderate form in which the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of making money and political gain, but not with the intent of harming people. Grade 3 is a severe form in which the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of harming others.

The management of this disorder requires the management of false information, which is rumor surveillance, targeted messaging and community engagement.

Repeated sufferers at the Grade 1 level, all sufferers from Grade 2 and 3 levels need psycho-social counseling and sometimes require strong regulations and enforcement to control such information disorder.

The most critical intervention is to be mindful of the fact that not all posts in social media and news are real, and need to be interpreted carefully.

From this paper, the idea of “information disorder syndrome” quickly jumped into the lexicon of both the censorship-industrial complex and the mental health industry. It is important to note that the terms syndrome, disease, and mental disorders are often used interchangeably. In this case, it has been determined by organizations such as First Draft and the Aspen Institute that the way to cure this syndrome is to stop the flow of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation online.

Is it just a matter of time before the American Psychiatric Association puts this new “syndrome” into the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)?

Is this a possibility?

The American Psychological Association is at least considering how to fit “information disorder” or even “information disorder syndrome” into their modalities. The APA has developed a consensus statement report on fighting health misinformation, which we taxpayers paid for. The CDC paid the APA $2 million for this project.

Next up will be the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) developing a funding program to research how to cure or manage this new mental health disorder; considered a new syndrome because of the pernicious tendrils of the internet.

As information disorder syndrome is not a formally recognized mental health condition yet, so far, specific NIMH funding has been absent. However, suppose information disorder syndrome continues to evolve by the medical establishment into a mental health condition. In that case, it is conceivable that NIMH could support studies in the future, particularly for the “sufferers from grade 2 and 3 levels who need psycho-social counseling and sometimes require strong regulations and enforcement to control such information disorder.”

This is yet another example of how the government can and has previously exerted control over individuals. What happens when the APA stigmatizes people who have contrarian views or lifestyles or posts mis, dis or mal-information repeatedly online? The APA has a long history of discriminating and labeling categories of people who differ from the norm, such as when being gay became a mental health disorder in the 1950s.

This lasted for decades, and the APA endorsed many medical treatments such as surgical interventions, including castrations, vasectomies, hysterectomies, and lobotomies, drug therapies (including aversion therapy, which included inducing nausea, vomiting, or paralysis when exposed to same-sex erotic images or thoughts) and even chemical castration, sexual depressants and stimulants, LSD, estrogen and testosterone and also electroconvulsive therapy—which involved administering electric shocks to patients.

Taking this back to the topic at hand, making information disorder a syndrome affecting the individual allows the state through the medical and insurance industries to step in and force the individual to conform to societal norms. As shown in the example above, this is within the realm of possibilities.

Is this a future that is going to happen? Who knows, but it could. And we have to be prepared for this future manifesting in various planning stages. This is why terms such as “information disorder” and “information disorder syndrome” are being propagated throughout new media and must be rejected at all levels.

”Free speech is the most pragmatic tool we have for ascertaining truth. Only by examining all sides of an issue can the truth be chiseled out like a statue out of marble. But the underlying reality is that there can be many truths; we each have our own experiences, values, mores, and life. That is the beauty and wonder of being an individual. There can be no free speech without free and open access to ideas, knowledge, truths, and untruths. Without free speech, we are little more than slaves.

We must defend all speech—whether untrue, hateful, or intolerable, as that is the only way to protect our rights and abilities to understand the world. As soon as free speech is restricted, that restriction will be used to sway public opinion. As soon as one person can be defined as a heretic for uttering words, then soon everyone opposing the “officially approved” side of an issue will be labeled as a heretic. The next logical step will be for the state to define acts of heresy as criminal offenses. As soon as governments and those in power can sway public opinion by restricting free speech, democracy and even our republic of United States will be lost.”

(From “PsyWar: Enforcing the New World Order”)

Republished from the author’s Substack