MONTREAL — Federal prosecutors are pushing for “extraordinary” harsh prison sentences for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber. The two were prominent spokespeople in the 2022 Freedom Convoy organized by truckers demanding the repeal of government-imposed COVID mandates that threatened their livelihoods.
Barber and Lich were convicted April 3 on a frame-up charge of mischief, a serious crime under Canadian law.
At a sentencing hearing in Ottawa July 23-24, government prosecutors demanded seven years in prison for Lich and eight years for Barber, a trucker. He was also convicted of counseling others to disobey a court order.
Prosecutors are also demanding that a court confiscate Barber’s tractor trailer.
“The vindictive nature from the prosecution office has become too obvious to ignore,” Lich told the media before the start of the hearing. It “will set a precedent going forward that will affect all Canadians who choose to peacefully protest.”
“It’s not about a vehicle,” Barber said at a court session in April after learning of the prosecutors’ determination to confiscate his truck. “They want to erase the spirit of the convoy and make an example out of us, so no one ever dares to stand up again.”
Freedom Convoy ‘seditious’?
The Freedom Convoy was initiated by truckers in western Canada in January 2022 after their jobs were threatened when the federal government adopted a mandate forbidding them from crossing the Canada-U.S. border unless they had gotten COVID vaccinations.
Hundreds of truckers from across the country hopped in their rigs, many with their spouses and children, and drove to Ottawa to demand that then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeal the order.
The Freedom Convoy attracted widespread support from working people across Canada as well as in the U.S. who were fed up with government lockdown regulations and other anti-worker policies.
On Feb. 7, 2022, Mark Carney, now Canada’s prime minister, demanded Ottawa act decisively against the protest, charging that it amounted to “sedition” and an “insurrection.”
“Those who are still helping to extend this occupation must be identified and punished to the full extent of the law,” he insisted.
Fraudulently claiming the truckers’ protest in the capital created a “threat to national security” and a “national public order emergency,” Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022. It gives the police draconian powers. The bank accounts of convoy leaders and other participants in the protest were frozen without court orders.
Lich and Barber were arrested Feb. 17. The next day the government mobilized 3,000 heavily armed cops to break up the three-week-long protest, arresting and charging hundreds. Lich and Barber were held in jail for months. It was one of the most repressive cop operations in Canadian history.
The executive board of the Ontario Public Service Union condemned the use of the Emergencies Act against the truckers, warning that it could also be used against workers exercising their right to strike for better wages and working conditions.
Last January a federal court ruled that the use of the Emergencies Act against the Freedom Convoy was illegal, since there was in fact no national public order emergency. Ottawa is appealing that ruling.
At the July 23-24 sentencing hearing lawyers for both Lich and Barber asked Justice Heather Perkins-McVey to order an “absolute discharge,” the lowest sentence possible, leaving them with no criminal record.
Prosecutor Siobhan Westcher admitted the convoy was not violent but argued it was organized “with a clear intent of pressuring the government through disruption.”
“Unions need to take the lead in defense of Lich and Barber by campaigning for their convictions to be overturned and for the repeal of the Emergencies Act,” Philippe Tessier, Communist League candidate for mayor of Saint Leonard, a borough of Montreal, told the Militant July 25.
A Sept. 12 court session will hear arguments on the prosecution’s demand to confiscate Barber’s truck. On Oct. 7 Judge Perkins-McVey will hand down sentences on Lich and Barber.