COVID-19
Freedom Convoy leaders await final court date in long trial after lawyers present final submissions

From LifeSiteNews
After the trial for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed last week for closing arguments, the court adjourned again until September, and a final verdict is not expected until 2025.
The trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber is slowly ending, with defense lawyers giving their last submissions to the Ottawa courthouse last Friday.
The trial is being overseen by Justice Heather Perkins-McVey. The government (Crown) has claimed that Lich and Barber acted as “co-conspirators” in the Freedom Convoy. Perkins-McVey is expected to give her ruling within a six-month time frame after the final court day, meaning a verdict will likely not come until 2025.
After a five-month hiatus, the trial resumed in an Ottawa courthouse last week for closing arguments. According to The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, the court has adjourned until September 13th, “on which it is expected that the Crown will have a half day to reply.”
Lich’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, noted to the court that there were two distinct things that “made this case different from the 100 legal cases cited by the Crown and defence,” as reported by the TDF.
The first was that “in no case is there a situation where authorities directed protesters to park, then arrested them — to now prosecute the leaders is unprecedented,” the TDF said.
As for the second thing, the TDF observed that “In no case was there an order by another court preserving the right of protesters to peacefully protest. Justice (Hugh) McLean made this clear in his two orders arising from the motion for an injunction. Crown counsel made no reference to this in their submissions. Greenspon said that these judicial orders preserved the right of protesters to protest. And, he noted, these rights are constitutionally entrenched in s2(b) and (c) of the Charter.”
Lich and Barber face multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation, and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. In Canada, anyone charged with mischief could face a potential jail sentence of up to 10 years.
As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.
Besides the ongoing trial, Lich and Barber and a host of others recently filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Trudeau government for its use of the Emergencies Act (EA) to quash the Freedom Convoy in 2022.
In early 2022, thousands of Canadians from coast to coast came to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14. Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.
The EA controversially allowed the government to freeze the bank accounts of protesters, conscript tow truck drivers, and arrest people for participating in assemblies the government deemed illegal.
During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, 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
Freedom Convoy leaders’ sentencing judgment delayed, Crown wants them jailed for two years

Fr0m LifeSiteNews
Years after their arrests, Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are still awaiting their sentencing after being found ‘guilty’ of mischief.
The sentencing for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber has been further delayed, according to the protest organizers.
“In our trial, the longest mischief trial of all time, we set hearing dates to set hearing dates,” quipped Lich, drawing attention to the fact that the initial sentencing date of April 16 has passed and there is still not a rescheduled date.
Earlier this month, both Lich and Barber were found guilty of mischief for their roles as leaders of the 2022 protest and as social media influencers, despite the non-violent nature of the demonstration.
Barber noted earlier this month that the Crown is seeking a two-year jail sentence against him and is also looking to seize the truck he used in the protest. As a result, his legal team asked for a stay of proceedings.
Barber, along with his legal team, have argued that all proceedings should be stopped because he “sought advice from lawyers, police and a Superior Court Judge” regarding the legality of the 2022 protest. If his application is granted, Barber would avoid any jail time.
Lich has argued that the Crown asking for a two-year jail sentence is “not about the rule of law” but rather “about crushing a Canadian symbol of Hope.”
Lich and Barber were arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa for their roles in leading the popular Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates. During COVID, Canadians were subjected to vaccine mandates, mask mandates, extensive lockdowns and even the closure of churches.
Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.” During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.
The actions taken by the Trudeau government were publicly supported by Mark Carney at the time, who on Monday won re-election and is slated to form a minority government.
COVID-19
Former Australian state premier accused of lying about justification for COVID lockdowns

Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria
From LifeSiteNews
By David James
Monica Smit said she is launching a private criminal prosecution against Daniel Andrews based on ‘new evidence proving they enforced lockdowns without medical advice or evidence.’
The fiercest opponent of the former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews during the COVID crisis was activist Monica Smit. The government responded to her advocacy by arresting her for participating in anti-lockdown protests. When she refused to sign her bail conditions she was made, in effect, a political prisoner for 22 days.
Smit subsequently won a case against the Victoria Police for illegal imprisonment, setting an important precedent. But in a vicious legal maneuver, the judge ensured that Smit would be punished again. She awarded Smit $4,000 in damages which was less than the amount offered in pre-trial mediation. It meant that, despite her victory, Smit was liable for Victoria Police’s legal costs of $250,000. It was not a good day for Australian justice.
There is a chance that the tables will be reversed. Smit has announced she is launching a private criminal prosecution against Andrews and his cabinet based on “new evidence proving they enforced lockdowns without medical advice or evidence.”
The revelation that the savage lockdown policies made little sense from a health perspective is hardly a surprise. Very little of what happened made medical sense. For one thing, according to the Worldometer, about four-fifths of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 had no symptoms. Yet for the first time in medical history healthy people were treated as sick.
The culpability of the Victorian government is nevertheless progressively becoming clearer. It has emerged that the Andrews government did not seek medical advice for its curfew policies, the longest in the Western world. Andrews repeatedly lied when he said at press conferences that he was following heath advice.
David Davis, leader of the right wing opposition Liberal Party, has made public a document recording an exchange between two senior health officials. It shows that the ban on people leaving their homes after dark was implemented without any formal input from health authorities.
Davis acquired the email exchange, between Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton and his deputy Finn Romanes, under a Freedom of Information request. It occurred two-and-a-half hours after the curfew was announced.
Romanes explained he had been off work for two days and was not aware of any “key conversations and considerations” about the curfew and had not “seen any specific written assessment of the requirement” for one.
He added: “The idea of a curfew has not arisen from public health advice in the first instance. In this way, the action of issuing a curfew is a mirror to the State of Disaster and is not occurring on public health advice but is a decision taken by Cabinet.” Sutton responded with: “Your assessment is correct as I understand it.”
The scale of the deceptions is becoming harder for most Australians to avoid if they are paying attention. The mainstream media, for example, is now running stories that the virus originated in a laboratory. Those who have memories will recall that in 2020 anyone suggesting that the virus was artificially made were accused of anti-China racism, especially the state broadcasters SBS and the ABC. Likewise, most politicians and academics dismissed the lab leak theory. To say the least, no one is holding up their hand to take responsibility for their errors.
The email exchange, compelling evidence of the malfeasance of the Andrews government, raises further questions. If Smit’s lawyers can get Andrews to respond under oath, one ought to be: “If you were lying about following medical advice, then why were you in such a hurry to impose such severe measures and attack dissenters?”
It remains a puzzle. Why did otherwise inconsequential politicians suddenly turn into dictatorial monsters with no concern for what their constituents thought?
The most likely explanation is that they were told it was a biowarfare attack and were terrified, ditching health advice and applying military protocols. The mechanism for this was documented in a speech by Queensland senator Malcolm Roberts.
If so, was an egregious error of judgement. As the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed, 2020 and 2021 had the lowest level of respiratory diseases since records have been kept. There was never a pandemic.
There needs to be an explanation to the Australian people of why they lost their liberty and basic rights. A private prosecution might achieve this. Smit writes: “Those responsible should face jail time, nothing less. The latest revelation of ‘document 34‘ is just the beginning. A public criminal trial will expose truths beyond our imagination.”
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