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Freedom Convoy leaders’ trial attorneys attempt to get judge to budge on allowing video evidence

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

One of the leaders’ lawyers ‘contended that these videos provide context and completeness to the videos and statements of the accused tendered by the Crown.’

Day 37 of the trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber included some “important” updates, according to their legal team, as their lawyers argued that allowing video to be entered as evidence would provide “context and completeness” into why they led the protests.

The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, noted in a daily court update regarding Thursday’s court proceedings that Diane Magas, Barber’s counsel, “continued her submission on the admissibility of statements of videos made by her client.”

“She contended that these videos provide context and completeness to the videos and statements of the accused tendered by the Crown,” the TDF said.

In response, the government suggested that extra videos as well as statements that were shown by Magas are “not necessary for an understanding of the words spoken by Mr. Barber in the videos and statements shown by the Crown.”

The trial presided over by Justice Heather Perkins-McVey has concluded for the time being, with Friday being the last scheduled court day. LifeSiteNews has covered the trial extensively since it began last year.

As of Thursday, Perkins-McVey has not ruled on allowing extra video as evidence.

On Day 36 of the Freedom Convoy leaders’ trial, their lawyers argued that video statements made by the leaders should be allowed as “evidence of the truth.”

Thus far, the government has asserted “that the absence of violence or peaceful nature of the protest didn’t make it lawful, emphasizing that the onus was on the Crown to prove the protest’s unlawfulness.”

The government has held steadfast to the notion in trying to prove that Lich and Barber somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words as part of a co-conspiracy. This claim has been rejected by the defense as weak.

The trial resumed for one day last week for only the second court date since the new year, with Perkins-McVey deciding to dismiss an application by the Freedom Convoy leaders that asked the court to throw out so-called conspiracy charges.

Trial could extend well into 2025

The TDF noted that during court proceedings on Thursday the defense moved to argue that the “Carter application should be ‘bifurcated’ — that is, it should be heard and ruled upon by the Court before closing submissions.”

To back the claims up, the government has been hoping to use what is called a “Carter application” to help them make their case. The government’s so-called “Carter Application” asks that the judge to consider “Barber’s statements and actions to establish the guilt of Lich, and vice versa,” TDF stated.

The TDF has said that a Carter application is very “complicated” and requires that the government prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that there was a “conspiracy or plan in place and that Lich was a party to it based on direct evidence,” and as such, the defense is asking the judge to dismiss the application.

On Thursday, the Convoy leaders’ defense counsel said, as per the TDF, that they could not “properly prepare closing submissions without an understanding of the extent and nature of the evidence the Crown intends to use against their clients.”

To date, Perkins-McVey has not made a ruling on the Carter application.

Closing off the court day on Thursday, the court asked the defense if they were ready to make an “election” and they said they will not be submitting additional evidence.

“Thus, the evidentiary portion of the trial is complete, and it remains for the parties to argue outstanding issues and then proceed to closing submissions,” the TDF said.

Closing submissions are not expected to happen until August, which the TDF predicted could extend into 2025.

Lich and Barber are facing 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. 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.

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.

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Freedom Convoy

Ottawa spent “excessive” $2.2 million fighting Emergencies Act challenge

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News release from the Canadian Constitution Foundation

Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found in January that the February 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act to deal with the Freedom Convoy protests was unreasonable because there was no national emergency nor threats to security of Canada as were required to invoke the Act.

The Canadian Constitution Foundation is shocked to learn that Ottawa spent more than $2 million of taxpayer funds unsuccessfully fighting the legal challenge launched by the CCF and others to the Trudeau government’s illegal invocation of the Emergencies Act in 2022.

The $2,231,000 figure was revealed by the Department of Justice in response to an inquiry from Conservative civil liberties critic Marilyn Gladu.

The hefty figure was first reported in the Globe and Mail. Experienced counsel told the Globe that the amount spent was “excessive.”

The number includes the cost that the government spent fighting the judicial review of the invocation decision in Federal Court. It does not include the cost of Ottawa’s appeal, which is proceeding at the Federal Court of Appeal.

Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found in January that the February 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act to deal with the Freedom Convoy protests was unreasonable because there was no national emergency nor threats to security of Canada as were required to invoke the Act.

Justice Mosley also found that regulations made as a result of the invocation violated freedom of expression because they captured people who “simply wanted to join in the protest by standing on Parliament Hill carrying a placard” and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures because bank accounts were frozen without any sort of judicial pre-authorization.

CCF Litigation Director Joanna Baron was dismayed to learn how much Ottawa spent.

“Civil liberties groups like the CCF rely on regular Canadians who care about rights and freedoms to fund this type of public interest litigation,” she said.

“The fact that the government seems willing to spend whatever it takes to defend its unlawful decision shows what we’re up against when we fight to protect the constitution and the rule of law.”

The CCF is calling on the federal government to drop the appeal of Justice Mosley’s decision.

Canadians who agree with the decision are encouraged to sign the CCF’s online petition calling on the government to drop the appeal. The CCF is also asking Canadians to consider making a tax-deductible charitable donation to the CCF that will assist with fighting the appeal.

The CCF is represented by Sujit Choudhry of Haki Chambers and Janani Shanmuganathan of Goddard & Shanmuganathan.

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Japanese study finds ‘significant increases’ in cancer deaths after third mRNA COVID doses

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Cancer deaths started rising again in Japan in 2021, and one study concludes it ‘may be attributable to several mechanisms’ of the mRNA-based COVID vaccines.

A new study has found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after taking a third dose of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Japanese study published April 8 in the journal Cureus.

The study looked at age-adjusted mortality rates for multiple types of cancers from 2020 to 2022 in Japanese government data. “No significant excess mortality was observed during the first year of the pandemic (2020),” it says. “However, some excess cancer mortalities were observed in 2021 after mass vaccination with the first and second vaccine doses, and significant excess mortalities were observed for all cancers and some specific types of cancer (including ovarian cancer, leukemia, prostate cancer, lip/oral/pharyngeal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and breast cancer) after mass vaccination with the third dose in 2022.”

Notably, the rollout of the COVID vaccines coincided with an interruption and slowing of declines in cancer mortality rates that had been observed across all age groups over the span of the preceding decade. Third mRNA doses correlated with “significant excess mortalities” of all cancers, including breast, prostate, and ovarian cancer as well as leukemia. Almost all of the COVID vaccines at issue were mRNA-based, with 78% of those being from Pfizer and 22% from Moderna.

“For all cancers, we estimated the excess mortalities to be -0.4% (-0.9, 0.1), 1.1% (0.5, 1.8), and 2.1% (1.4, 2.8), respectively, indicating no excess in 2020 and statistically significant increases in 2021 and especially in 2022,” the authors write.

Changes in 2020 can be attributed to the height of the lockdowns forcing delays and cancellations of surgeries and other cancer treatments, but the researchers note several potential causal links between the vaccines and cancer deaths in 2021 and beyond.

“Some studies have shown that type I interferon (INF) responses, which play an essential role in cancer immunosurveillance, are suppressed after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-LNP vaccination,” they write.

“SARS-CoV-2 vaccine has been shown to cause immunosuppression and lead to the reactivation of latent viruses such as varicella-zoster virus (VZV, human herpesvirus 3; HHV3) or human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) in some cases,” the add. “These phenomena could also help explain the excess deaths from lip/oral/pharyngeal cancer in 2022 when mass vaccination with third and later doses was underway.”

The researchers conclude that “[t]hese particularly marked increases in mortality rates of these ERα-sensitive cancers may be attributable to several mechanisms of the mRNA-LNP vaccination rather than COVID-19 infection itself or reduced cancer care due to the lockdown. The significance of this possibility warrants further studies.”

“I have long suspected a cancer link to the vaccines just based on the science of immunology,” MIT researcher Stephanie Seneff told The Epoch Times in response to the study. “What I think is happening, broadly speaking, is that the vaccine is causing impairment of the innate immune response, which leads to an increased susceptibility to any infection, increased autoimmune disease, and accelerated cancer progression.”

In 2021, Project Veritas shed light on some of the reasons for such under-reporting with undercover video from inside Phoenix Indian Medical Center, a facility run under the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Indian Health Service program, in which emergency room physician Dr. Maria Gonzales laments that myocarditis cases go unreported “because they want to shove it under the mat,” and nurse Deanna Paris attests to seeing “a lot” of people who “got sick from the side effects” of the COVID shots, but “nobody” is reporting them to VAERS “because it takes over a half hour to write the damn thing.”

An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published February in the journal Vaccine–the largest analysis to date–“observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID vaccines, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” Earlier this month, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions.

In Florida, a grand jury impaneled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is currently investigating the manufacture and rollout of the COVID vaccines. In February, it released its first interim report on the underlying justification for Operation Warp Speed, which determined that lockdowns did more harm than good, that masks were ineffective at stopping COVID transmission, that COVID was “statistically almost harmless” to children and most adults, and that it is “highly likely” that COVID hospitalization numbers were inflated. The grand jury’s report on the vaccines themselves is highly anticipated.

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