MONTREAL — Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, who were spokespeople for the February 2022 protest in Ottawa by hundreds of truckers and others, were sentenced to 18 and 12 months respectively Oct. 7. Dozens of supporters attended the hearing. Both Lich and Barber have been ordered to spend 12 months under house arrest, and then be subject to several months of a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. stay-at-home curfew.
Lich says she is considering appealing her sentence.
In November, in a separate court proceeding, the government will continue its vindictive attempt to seize Barber’s 2004 Kenworth truck, his family’s primary source of income.
The two were speaking out for the several hundred truckers, their families and supporters who occupied streets around Parliament for a few weeks in early 2022, protesting government vaccine mandates that violated their rights and threatened their livelihoods.
Claiming a grave threat to national security was unfolding there, the government imposed the anti-working-class Emergencies Act and sent 3,000 heavily armed police to break up the peaceful protest.
A federal court has since ruled that Ottawa’s use of this act against the truckers was illegal, a violation of basic freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Barber and Lich had been convicted April 3 on frame-up charges of mischief, a serious crime under Canadian law. Government prosecutors had demanded seven years in prison for Lich and eight years for Barber. The judge rejected this out of hand, pointing out people convicted of far more serious charges, like robbery and aggravated assault, often serve less prison time. Barber conducted himself “with the noblest of intent,” the judge added, and “did not advocate for violence.”
This sentence sends “a chilling message to Canadians who freely exercise their Charter freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” said John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which helped raise funds for Barber’s defense.
Before their trial, Lich and Barber had been subjected to extraordinary restrictions to get out of jail on bail. This was designed to silence them and serve as a warning to others tempted to protest against the government. Lich was forbidden from using social media for any reason, contacting any of the other leaders of the convoy, or participating in activities opposing vaccine mandates.
“Our campaign stands against this frame-up trial and punitive sentences,” Philippe Tessier, a rail worker, Teamster union member and Communist League candidate for mayor of Saint Leonard, a borough in Montreal, told the Militant. “In the context of the deepening economic, social, and political crisis of the capitalist system, the use of the notorious Emergencies Act against the truckers was a threat of what will come as working-class resistance and the use of union power to defend our interests grows. We call for the sentences to be overturned and the law repealed.
“Ottawa has been carrying out a major assault on the unions and our right to strike, imposing back-to-work orders on rail, port and postal workers,” Tessier said. “Ten thousand striking Air Canada flight attendants pointed the way forward when they defied yet another government back-to-work order in August, continuing their strike and making gains. Now 55,000 postal workers are on strike after being ordered back to work last December.”