The criminal trial of "Freedom Convoy" organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber is expected to resume today with a deep dive into a mountain of social media evidence police amassed during the protest. Barber and Lich sit in the gallery as they wait for the start of the day's hearings at the Public Order Emergency Commission, in Ottawa, Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
OTTAWA – “Freedom Convoy” organizer Chris Barber called for people to “flood the city” in one of a mountain of social media videos put to the court as part of his criminal trial Thursday.
Barber, who operated a trucking business in Swift Current, Sask., is co-accused with his fellow protest organizer Tamara Lich from Medicine Hat, Alta.
The trial is in its third day of testimony in Ottawa.
Lich and Barber face charges related to their role in organizing the protest against COVID-19 health restrictions last year that blockaded Ottawa city streets for weeks with big-rig trucks and encampments.
They were both among thousands of protesters who recorded and streamed videos from the protest as it unfolded.
In a video showed to the court, Barber told supporters he believed riot police were on their way to Ottawa. He said that if protest organizers’ “phones go dark,” people should use whatever means possible to come to the city and protest peacefully.
“You come here and you flood this city,” Barber said in the video, posted to his TikTok account on Feb. 7, during the second week of the protest.
In the expletive-laden message, he said he didn’t care if everyone in Canada came to Ottawa.
The video was part of five hours worth of TikTok and YouTube videos compiled by Ottawa police Sgt. Joanne Pilotte, who is on the stand as the Crown’s witness today.
The Crown alleges that Lich and Barber orchestrated the protest, directed the movement of trucks and protesters, and counselled them to remain in Ottawa even has police ordered them to leave.
The Crown also hopes to prove that Lich and Barber conspired together during the protest, and that evidence against one of them would apply to both.
Barber sat in the first row of the courtroom Thursday, a notebook in hand, as video after video from his TikTok account, BigRed19755, were played for the court.
His face remained impassive as the Crown showed another video from Feb. 7 where Barber suggested an empty intersection near the National Art Gallery in downtown Ottawa looked “lonely.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s anybody here,” he said, and asked whether there was anything they could do about that before letting out a long laugh.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2023.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly spelled the names of Sgt. Joanne Pilotte and Const. Isabelle Cyr.
