MP Motz defends police duty over Lich arrest

By COLLIN GALLANT on June 30, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Medicine Hat’s MP and former senior police official says the rhetoric regarding the Tamara Lich case needs to be turned down, including calls on social media that local police be punished for executing an arrest warrant.

Medicine Hat police took the Redcliff resident and key organizer of the Freedom Convoy protest into custody this week and handed her over to Ottawa police, who issued a nationwide arrest warrant stating she had contravened her bail conditions.

That led to a torrent of comment on social media Tuesday calling the local service the “Gestapo,” and stated officers should themselves be tried for treason.

Responses to a police statement included a picture of a noose and film of soldiers marching in Nazi Germany.

On Wednesday, Motz, who finished his career with the MHPS as a police inspector before entering politics, said police officers carry out Canada-wide warrants “every day all across Canada.”

Without making judgment on the validity of the charges, the police process appeared fairly routine, and the legal process should be allowed to play out, he said.

“I’ve talked about the divisiveness on both sides, and it’s time we all stop and let the evidence come forward,” said Motz, adding he’s interested to see the defence from Lich’s legal team and the result of the case.

“I get the frustration, and many will espouse a lot of conspiracy theories that get thrown around, and social media feeds into that.

“But to point fingers at the Medicine Hat Police Service – this is a process that’s based on the rule of law, and that’s what makes our democracy a democracy.”

On Monday, Lich, a main organizer of the protests in Ottawa last winter, was arrested on a charge that she broke a bail condition. Specifics were not released. Lich was scheduled to appear in Ottawa court Wednesday, one day after she was remanded in custody by a local justice of the peace.

Motz has been consistent stating his support for the convoy’s goal of ending vaccine mandates, but urged protesters to open highway blockades in Alberta and Windsor, Ont..

He is a member of the parliamentary committee that is discussing government action during the month-long period while the act was in place.

That gave cabinet certain extraordinary powers to muster resources to break up blockades at Coutts and Windsor, which concluded at its start, as well as the main protest in Ottawa.

Separately, the required federal inquiry into the invocation of the act began determining interested parties as intervenors that will include the province of Alberta.

Medicine Hat police made no comment about feedback they had directly received on Tuesday.

A generally well behaved protest of several dozen people took up space of the lawn of the Remand Centre on Tuesday afternoon without incident.

Earlier that afternoon MHPS issued a brief statement explaining their actions and the procedure involved in the arrest and transfer of prisoners.

Medicine Hat police turned off the ability to comment on the post, but the message was promoted or “quote tweeted” 34 times in less than an hour. Many times with added commentary that MHPS was complicit in a larger plot to silence political dissent, or should be defunded.

Insults included “Brownshirts,” “Trudeau’s gestappo (sic),” “cowards,” “pigs” and “porkers.”

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