John King of CNN labeled the Canadian “Freedom Convoy,” which protested vaccine mandates in early 2022, “a nationwide insurrection.”
“The state of emergency in place in Ottawa, where the police chief says COVID protests are ‘a nationwide insurrection driven by madness.’”
CNN correspondent Paula Newton followed up, comparing the convoy to “sedition” and “a threat to democracy.”
Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went even further.
Canadians have the right to protest, to disagree with their government, and to make their voices heard. We’ll always protect that right. But let’s be clear: They don’t have the right to blockade our economy, or our democracy, or our fellow citizens’ daily lives. It has to stop.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 8, 2022
What was all the hubbub about? The Canadian government was preventing unvaccinated truckers from crossing the border into the U.S. There had been a vaccine exemption for cross-border truckers until January 2022. When it ended, the Canadians started to enforce the mandate.
The Canadian truckers drove into downtown Ottawa, making it difficult for drivers to move. They occupied several bridges, including the Ambassador Bridge, a major artery. Police eventually moved them off the bridge, but it hardly quelled the protest.
Finally, the Canadian government declared a state of emergency on Feb. 6, 2022. In November, during a government inquiry into the state of emergency, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told the investigating commission of a phone call she got from Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council and Joe Biden’s top economic adviser.
“They are very, very, very worried,” Freeland wrote in an email to her staff. “If this is not sorted out in the next 12 hours, all of their northeastern car plants will shut down.” That call put a little backbone in Trudeau’s spine, and the police began to move in.
The state of emergency allowed the government to freeze protesters’ bank accounts, ban travel to protest sites, and compel trucks to tow vehicles blocking streets.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were two of the most prominent organizers of the Freedom Convoy. “Both were found guilty of mischief in April 2025 for their roles in encouraging people to remain at the protest. Barber was also found guilty of counselling others to disobey a court order. They were acquitted of intimidation and obstructing police, with the judge highlighting their calls for peaceful protest,” according to the National Post.
Incredibly, Lich was sentenced to seven years for the mischief charge. Barber was also found guilty of encouraging others to “disobey a court order” and was sentenced to eight years.
I guess that’ll show those freedom nuts who’s boss.
“It’s certainly the case that you can do an awful lot of heinous things in Canada before a prosecutor would ever think of asking for seven years,” Tristin Hopper wrote for the National Post. For example, in March, prosecutors wanted a sentence of six years for a man found guilty of sexually assaulting a baby.
Reason.com:
In 2022, an Edmonton man received a five-year sentence for killing two people while driving drunk; that was the same sentence given in 2019 to a Newfoundland man who was drunk when he killed a couple and seriously injured two other people. Five years was also the sentence sought for a Vancouver man who fatally stabbed a good Samaritan who intervened in a heated public argument.
Seven or eight years for mischievously organizing public protests against authoritarian government policies says a lot about the Canadian government’s priorities. That’s especially true given how far the Canadian government already went to punish participants in protests about which The New York Times editorial board wrote, “by the standards of mass protests around the world, the ‘Freedom Convoy’ snarling Downtown Ottawa ranks as a nuisance.” To deal with that nuisance, the government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to compel private parties to help it end the protests and, in particular, to freeze demonstrators’ bank accounts and cut them off from funding.
“The Crown says it’s seeking an extraordinary sentence for an unprecedented crime, as court began hearing sentencing submissions Wednesday in the mischief case of Ottawa truck convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber,” the CBC’s Arthur White-Crummey reported last week.
The day has arrived when Canadians protesting the loss of their freedom can be sent to prison for nearly a decade because the authorities were embarrassed.
Editor’s Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump’s agenda to make America great again.
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