Chris Barber arrives for his trial at the courthouse in Ottawa, on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. The court is expected to watch several lengthy press conferences hosted by the "Freedom Convoy" as the criminal trial for two of the protest's organizers enters its seventh day.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
OTTAWA – “Freedom Convoy” organizer Tamara Lich was identified as the president of the corporation formed to manage donations for the protest in a video played for the court Wednesday.
A courtroom scattered with supporters watched recordings of several lengthy press conferences hosted by spokespeople during the protest on Wednesday, though neither of the organizers on trial featured very heavily.
In one, Lich identified herself as an organizer of the convoy. A fellow organizer, Ben Dichter, said she was being modest and that she was really the “president.”
A federal inquiry into the government’s use of the Emergencies Act to end the protests heard last year that a core group of organizers formed “Freedom Corp.” to manage donations under the direction of their lawyer at the time, Keith Wilson. Lich was listed as president of the corporation.
She and Chris Barber were among those who organized a convoy of trucks that travelled to Ottawa in early 2022 to protest COVID-19 public health measures and call for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down.
They both face mischief and several counselling charges, including mischief, intimidation and obstructing police, for their role in the demonstrations that blockaded city streets for three weeks.
Barber did not appear in the videos shown Wednesday, though the Crown hopes to prove the two worked together so closely that evidence against one of them would apply to both.
The press conferences from Feb. 6 and 9 were streamed live on Facebook, and feature Lich and other prominent spokespeople taking questions from independent media outlets.
Both videos feature organizers sitting on a couch in what appears to be a hotel room. Lich was seen sitting in the centre of the frame, but she spoke very little in either video.
Dichter and others spoke about how the protest was putting pressure on governments to change public health measures, how they expected police to respond, and their distrust of “legacy media.”
Lich left the frame half an hour into the 75-minute video from Feb. 9.
The press conferences were among dozens of social media posts and messages compiled by Ottawa police Sgt. Joanne Pilotte, who has been on the stand for several days.
The defence is arguing the videos should not be admitted as evidence in the trial, which is being heard by a judge.
Lich’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, has said that his team plans to argue that much of the proposed evidence taken from the “Freedom Convoy 2022” is irrelevant to the charges laid against Barber and Lich.
The lawyers are expected to argue their position on the admissibility of the Facebook evidence later in the trial.
Eric Granger, another of Lich’s lawyers, had requested to settle the admissibility question before he begins to cross-examine Pilotte, but Justice Heather Perkins-McVey has said that discussion may be premature.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2023.
