COVID-19
Freedom Convoy lawyers ask for dismissal of Ottawa citizens’ $290 million class-action suit

From LifeSiteNews
Lawyers representing Freedom Convoy leaders filed an application to dismiss the lawsuit as a ‘Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) – a lawsuit designed to silence the expression of peaceful protesters.’
A $290 million class-action lawsuit filed by disgruntled Ottawa residents against the Freedom Convoy leaders is designed to “silence” the leaders’ right to free “expression,” say their lawyers, adding that they have applied to have the case dismissed.
According to a Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) press release from yesterday, lawyers representing Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and others, have filed an application to dismiss the lawsuit as a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP)–a lawsuit designed to silence the expression of peaceful protesters.” The lawyers are expected to be in court on Thursday, December 14, to argue their case.
“The fundamental Charter freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly must be vigorously protected and defended, whether they are attacked directly by government or indirectly through a misguided civil action,” noted JCCF President John Carpay regarding the application to dismiss the lawsuit.
In February 2022, the Freedom Convoy leaders were hit with the lawsuit, which originally started at $9.8 million but then ballooned to $290 million. The class-action lawsuit was filed by Ottawa civil servant Zexi Li on February 4, 2022, along with Geoffrey Delaney, Happy Goat Coffee Company, and a local union. It names plaintiffs who have businesses or were working in the city’s downtown core during the Freedom Convoy.
According to the February 17, 2022, filing, all the plaintiffs are being represented by Ottawa litigation lawyers Champ & Associates.
Included in the defendants lists besides Barber and Lich are Benjamin Dichter, as well as dozens of others. The lawsuit seeks damages against the peaceful protestors for “allegedly causing a nuisance. This lawsuit also seeks damages from citizens who donated to the peaceful protest,” noted the JCCF.
Li was instrumental in having a horn-honking injunction placed against the Freedom Convoy during the protest.
According to the JCCF, anti-SLAPP legislation serves “to protect defendants against ‘Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation’ (SLAPP)–lawsuits designed to silence a defendant’s freedom of expression through threats of damages or costs.”
“Anti-SLAPP motions are designed to end such lawsuits and are available to a defendant in any proceeding against them. Once an anti-SLAPP motion has been filed, the defendant must demonstrate that the proceeding against them arises from their expression that ‘relates to a matter of public interest’,” noted the JCCF.
Should the defendant demonstrate that their expression does relate to a “matter of public interest,” then the plaintiff “must then demonstrate that their lawsuit has ‘substantial merit,’ and that the defendant has no valid defense.”
At this point, the JCCF notes that a judge must then “weigh the importance of the expression at stake against the importance of the plaintiff’s allegations of harm.”
‘Factual and legal weaknesses’
JCCF lawyers will be in court tomorrow at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice regarding their Anti-SLAPP motion and say they will argue that the proceedings against “Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and others” do, in fact, “arise from their expression.”
“Donating to and participating in the Freedom Convoy amounted to an expression of support for the protest, and of disagreement with the Government of Canada’s response to COVID–matters of public interest,” noted the JCCF.
“Further, lawyers argue that Zexi Li’s class-action lawsuit contains factual and legal weaknesses; it is not obvious that the proceeding against the defendants has ‘substantial merit.’ Finally, lawyers argue that the defendants do have valid defenses and that the value of the expression at issue outweighs the allegations of nuisance against them.”
According to lawyer James Manson, Li’s lawsuit engages the “very purpose that ‘anti-SLAPP’ legislation was designed to address: an attempt to silence peaceful expression, and the right of defendants to participate in public debate.”
Lawyers will argue that the “plaintiffs’ entire class-action lawsuit is, in fact, a SLAPP action disguised as a nuisance claim and that the lawsuit is merely intended to punish the defendants for participating in the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest.”
The JCCF said that if they are successful, all or part of Li’s class action lawsuit will be dismissed.
Lawsuit comes amidst Freedom Convoy leaders’ trial
Currently, Lich and Barber are on trial in an Ottawa court to argue against Crown charges relating to their involvement with the Freedom Convoy. The trial is now on pause until the new year.
The Crown has been trying to prove that Lich and Barber had somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words as part of a co-conspiracy. Lich and Barber’s lawyers however reject this notion.
Of interest is that Li was called forth as a Crown witness in the trial back in October and was scolded by the judge for repeatedly calling the Freedom Convoy an “occupation.”
It got to the point where Justice Heather Perkins-McVey warned Li she must stop using the term “occupation” as a descriptor for the protest or face disciplinary action.
Li, in February of 2022, had commended Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s refusal to meet the truckers, telling CTV News at the time that the truckers “cannot be negotiated with” and that Ottawa downtown residents “have trauma” and deserve “reparations” for having been disturbed.
In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14.
During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse, and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.
COVID-19
FDA requires new warning on mRNA COVID shots due to heart damage in young men

From LifeSiteNews
Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA COVID shots must now include warnings that they cause ‘extremely high risk’ of heart inflammation and irreversible damage in males up to age 24.
The Trump administration’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it will now require updated safety warnings on mRNA COVID-19 shots to include the “extremely high risk” of myocarditis/pericarditis and the likelihood of long-term, irreversible heart damage for teen boys and young men up to age 24.
The required safety updates apply to Comirnaty, the mRNA COVID shot manufactured by Pfizer Inc., and Spikevax, the mRNA COVID shot manufactured ModernaTX, Inc.
According to a press release, the FDA now requires each of those manufacturers to update the warning about the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis to include information about:
- the estimated unadjusted incidence of myocarditis and/or pericarditis following administration of the 2023-2024 Formula of mRNA COVID-19 shots and
- the results of a study that collected information on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac MRI) in people who developed myocarditis after receiving an mRNA COVID-19 injection.
The FDA has also required the manufacturers to describe the new safety information in the adverse reactions section of the prescribing information and in the information for recipients and caregivers.
Additionally, the fact sheets for healthcare providers and for recipients and caregivers for Moderna COVID-19 shot and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot, which are authorized for emergency use in individuals 6 months through 11 years of age, have also been updated to include the new safety information in alignment with the Comirnaty and Spikevax prescribing information and information for recipients and caregivers.
In a video published on social media, Dr. Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, explained the alarming reasons for the warning updates.
While heart problems arose in approximately 8 out of 1 million persons ages 6 months to 64 years following reception of the cited shots, that number more than triples to 27 per million for males ages 12 to 24.
Prasad noted that multiple studies have arrived at similar findings.
Bruce Dowbiggin
The Covid 19 Disaster: When Do We Get The Apologies?

Breaking: Drs. Bonnie Henry and Theresa Tam have been appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of their role in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And so the game of covid liar’s poker has more winners. It’s like awarding the captain of the Titanic the Nobel Prize for his work on floatation. As we now know these two— and the other WHO finger puppets in Canada— made the Covid 19 episode worse, not better, with their prescription for panic, positives and punishment. Even as they knew the truth about the limits of the virus and the efficacy of vaccines they continued to spew fallacious PCR data on the extent of the sickness and who was at risk.
Put simply, to protect vulnerable seniors they said kids were also at great risk. Which was unconscionable.
In this they encouraged Justin Trudeau in his worst instincts, combining his father’s insouciant disregard for civil rights (sending in the police) with his mother’s mental stability. Propped up by Team Tam and its U.S. allies such as Anthony Fauci, this hysteria peaked with a sequestered PM crushing the Truckers Convoy’s vaccine protest with emergency measures and destruction of civil liberties.
Lest you wonder, this overreach was recognized at the time. Justice Maclean wrote at the trial of Convoy organizers, “Defendants & other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful & safe protest”. On Feb. 16, he continued a no-honking order, again writing: “Defendants & other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful & safe protest.”
The leaders of the Convoy, lynched by Canadian media’s phoney claims of right-wing American interference, are still fighting jail time on charges of nuisance. While violent criminals are routinely released on bail or absolved.
Justice Richard Mosley later concluded that while the convoy was a disruption of public order, it didn’t constitute a national emergency and invoking the act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility.” But in real time Team Tam made no attempts to correct the wilder misgivings about Covid (lockdowns, mandatory vaccines). Trudeau was given a hall pass. Needless to say the purchased media made things infinitely worse regurgitating these mistakes.
In short, they knew better but hid the truth. But why pick on Henry and Tam? Under Trudeau and his wingman Jagmeet Singh this was the golden age of lies and prevarications in Canada and the U.S. No apologies were ever offered when the truth emerged.
As we’ve noted before, Trudeau cried with a teddy bear carefully positioned over 751 alleged unmarked graves in a known Catholic cemetery that the local Cowessess band abandoned. The Liberal government knew the claim of 215 “children’s graves” was false, and still ran with it to get Trudeau his photo-op. Naturally the CBC Media Party played (and still plays) accomplice in this farce as the Canadian flag was lowered to half-mast for six months and Trudeau ratted out Canada at the UN as a genocidal state.
There were more, plenty more Trudeau scandals that media endorsed and then stood by even as the truth was revealed. SNC Lavalin. We Charity. Arrive Can app. Firing indigenous justice minister. Chinese drug infiltration/ money laundering. Nazi Celebrated in Parliament. Welcome To Canada immigration. Nova Scotia massacre. McKinsey Consultation. Blackface. And so on.
And were there apologies when it came time to make the Trudeau Liberals accountable? No, they staged a media circus over Donald Trump’s assertion of 51st state. All the fake news and deliberate lies went poof, allowing Mark Carney to seamlessly assume the PM job.

Lest We Forget Pt. 2 it was not exclusive to Canada. As we are now learning: Barack Obama and Joe Biden sat in an August 3, 2016 Situation Room briefing and said, yeah, let the highest officials in our administration fabricate evidence to frame the opposing party candidate Donald Trump. Obama. Biden. Comey. McCabe. Strzok. Page. Rice. Etc.
Knowingly using the faked Clinton campaign ‘Steele Dossier’ hoax, they launched a federal investigation into the Trump presidential campaign that lasted three years after Trump was sworn in as the nation’s 45th President. Arresting and jailing his partners and colleagues. Inventing fake stories for their media enablers. Let’s repeat that. Saint Obama knew there was criminal activity in the process but let his henchmen try to fix an election.

And when the ruse was uncovered no one apologized. No one in authority was fired or jailed. The Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the NT Times and Washington Post for disseminating the DEMs scandal were not rescinded. Nor were they given back by the lying newspapers.
The concerted frauds of the same U.S. DOJ, FBI and State Departments were fed by media and accepted by gullible publics in Canada and America. The fantastical 2020 election results were likewise drummed into the public irrespective of the sudden “appearance” of 27 million new votes during a pandemic.
It was all a fitting preamble to the 2020-2024 Biden senility scandal with Democrats running a man they knew was in full dementia. In the 2020 election Biden was hidden from public view, the better to let media attack Trump for spurious charges launched by partisan DNC attorneys in Georgia, New York and DC. Even then it took the suppression of Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop just prior to the election to get his father elected.

The dance of denial continued in Biden’s term as he physically and mentally deteriorated before the American public. But inquiries about who was running the government if not Biden were harshly suppressed. Media lackeys noted he was sharp as a tack mentally and in tip-top physical condition when he wasn’t falling down stairs.
It took the stunning 2024 debate debacle with Trump to strip away the lies about Biden’s health, now said to be advanced prostate cancer and Parkinson’s. The media, caught in their own lies about Biden’s condition, offered no apologies and tried to blame Biden’s stutter for the performance.. Right.
These were the two greatest U.S. hoaxes from people who’d cried hoax incessantly. They were hardly the only abuse of public trust. Some of the perpetrators are said to now be under investigation— even as they hand out awards to each other. The media’s credibility is shattered and yet they still blame others. Jaded voters are taking a “we’ll see” approach. But expectations of any change in DC or Ottawa are limited.
As Stephen Taylor posted on X: “Turns out for Liberals, ‘elbows up’ just means ‘noses up’ like it always has.”
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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