Juno News - Ottawa residents testify as Tamara Lich trial continues

00:00:00.000 One thing we have not done on this show in a couple of weeks is checked in with the ongoing

00:00:13.320 criminal trial of Tamara Leach and Chris Barber, the organizers and most visible faces of the

00:00:19.660 Freedom Convoy, which took place in Ottawa about a year and, well, more than a year and a half ago

00:00:25.240 now, but a year and eight months back. And there was a bit of a break and the trial was supposed to be

00:00:31.000 done on October 13th, but they've added more dates. I've been told they could even end up going

00:00:37.020 into December at the pace things are going. The Crown is still making its case. New witnesses were

00:00:42.540 added this week, notably residents of downtown Ottawa who testified to the horrors that they had

00:00:49.420 to endure as residents of downtown Ottawa, which I mean, I'd be horrified living in downtown Ottawa

00:00:54.240 myself, but they are not generally, but they were for those three weeks in 2022. I want to welcome

00:01:00.040 into the show to talk about this Matthew Horwood, who is a reporter with the Epoch Times. Matthew,

00:01:05.380 it is good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today. Hi, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

00:01:11.860 Your audio is a little out of sync, so hopefully we'll be able to get that sorted out. It might be

00:01:16.340 an issue with our system here, but let me ask you about the decision to call these residents,

00:01:21.240 because I understood when the Public Order Emergency Commission happened, people who lived in Ottawa have

00:01:25.860 a perspective to share about what they were living in. The people that were testifying this week,

00:01:30.480 by my understanding, didn't really have anything to say about Tamera Leach and Chris Barber,

00:01:36.180 who are the two individuals that are right now on trial.

00:01:39.040 No, none of these witnesses had any direct dealings with Tamera Leach or Chris Barber,

00:01:45.280 and that was the question that the defense asked at the end of every testimony. And the reason that

00:01:51.060 the Crown wanted to have these people testify is to demonstrate the scope and the impact of the

00:01:56.040 Freedom Convoy and the impact it had on residents. But the defense has said, well, we're prepared to

00:02:02.260 admit that this caused disruption to downtown residents and their enjoyment of property,

00:02:06.860 so there's no need to call these residents. And they also said that they would essentially be

00:02:11.620 victim impact statements, which are normally done at the end of a trial and are not applicable at

00:02:17.040 this point in it. So there were about, I'd say about two days in full where the Crown and Defense

00:02:22.460 spent time arguing back and forth about this, which of course added further delays to it.

00:02:26.560 And the judge made the point that at one point that if they had been allowed to testify and hear from

00:02:32.500 it, then we would have already gotten through it. So it just added a lot more to the lengthy process.

00:02:36.860 Added a whole lot to the Crown's case, from my understanding.

00:02:41.620 Yeah. And I, you know, obviously there is an important aspect of this and you need to

00:02:45.820 take the time if there is a discrepancy to go over it here, but we're talking about a trial that

00:02:50.500 was supposed to be done almost a week ago now. Is there any end in sight? Because the defense

00:02:54.940 hasn't even made its case yet.

00:02:56.580 Well, it's certainly getting a lengthier and I've heard talk about it going into 2024 because of how

00:03:04.060 many delays there's been both with, you know, audio troubles with delays and deliberations over

00:03:09.080 housekeeping rules and adding these eight new witnesses. But I mean, certainly it's important

00:03:14.540 to have people talk about the impact that the Freedom Convoy had on them. But as you mentioned,

00:03:19.900 none of it had any relation to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber. It only had impact or relation to the actual

00:03:25.720 protesters themselves. And it's nothing new that we're hearing. It's the honking, it's diesel fumes,

00:03:30.640 it's people publicly urinating, it's people being harassed for not for wearing masks outside.

00:03:35.800 But none of it is really, as I said, giving a lot more sway to the Crown's argument and proving the

00:03:41.240 charges at hand and how they relate back to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber.

00:03:44.740 Has there been in any of the trial that you've seen any real bombshell, like any real smoking gun,

00:03:52.380 so to speak, that shows Tamara and Chris did something other than what's already been reported?

00:03:57.500 Because I haven't seen that from my end, although I haven't been in the room.

00:04:01.660 Yeah, well, I think the best evidence against the two have come at the beginning of the trial when

00:04:06.600 videos were shown by the Crown taken from Chris Barber's TikTok and Tamara Leach's live streams.

00:04:13.100 Now, there's one clip to start off. There's many clips where Chris Barber repeatedly says,

00:04:18.040 be peaceful, respect police, you know, don't act up. We want to not lose the will of the public.

00:04:23.400 He says that repeatedly. But there is one video after the injunction against honking had been in

00:04:27.960 place where Barber told protesters that if the police came to take them away to lay on the horn and

00:04:33.780 don't let go until, you know, as a way of letting the other protesters know that police action was

00:04:39.800 happening. So that was a clip that resulted in the additional charge of counseling others to

00:04:44.820 disobey a court order came into play, which he pled not guilty to. And for Tamara Leach,

00:04:49.900 there is a video taken shortly the day before she was arrested, where she tells protesters to once

00:04:55.520 again, as we heard many times, hold the line and keep fighting the good fight. And the Crown is trying

00:05:00.900 to make the argument that she's counseling people to disobey the court order, to disobey the police

00:05:06.420 action and to come to Ottawa and protest. And the defense has made the argument, the rebuttal that

00:05:11.780 hold the line doesn't necessarily mean come and protest. I mean, there's a clip of Brian Peckford,

00:05:16.080 the former former premier of Newfoundland saying that as well. And he means it more of in a way of,

00:05:20.920 you know, keep up, like hold true to your values, keep standing up for what you believe in. So it

00:05:26.620 doesn't necessarily act as a smoking gun. But I would say those two clips would be the best pieces of

00:05:32.000 evidence that the Crown has shown thus far to prove the charges at hand. Yeah, the hold the line thing

00:05:37.940 is interesting, because there were no doubt in Ottawa people that viewed hold the line as being a

00:05:42.680 very literal call. I remember on that last weekend, I was in Ottawa when the police were moving in, and

00:05:47.440 you had some people that were literally saying, we've got to hold this line. And they were referring

00:05:50.800 to a very specific line on the snow. And they somehow thought that if they shoveled the snow into

00:05:55.580 like piles, that would, you know, hold the police horses and battering rams and all of that back. And it

00:06:00.480 lasted, I think, like five seconds. And but then there were other people where it was like you just

00:06:04.720 mentioned, Matthew, it was like more of a rallying cry, a spiritual cry. I mean, even that video when

00:06:10.020 Tamara was arrested, and she says, hold the line, like what actually happened was one of her supporters

00:06:15.680 who was filming it said, hold the line. And she just like, kind of flippantly shouted it back at

00:06:20.120 him. It wasn't like this call to do anything. And I think that that's where I mean, the case really

00:06:25.640 seems to be about trying to understand someone's state of mind, which is always a tricky thing to

00:06:30.960 do. Exactly. I mean, hold the line can mean many different things to many different people.

00:06:36.820 We didn't see clips during the trial of protesters yelling that line repeatedly saying that as they

00:06:42.680 were being moved out by police officers. So I mean, there's a debate about what exactly it can mean.

00:06:48.400 But yeah, I think we're just gonna have to wait and see what the judge says. I mean, Justice

00:06:54.720 Perkins McVoy has been very fair. She's, I've seen criticized the Crown lawyers more often than

00:07:02.020 the defense lawyers. And she's been, but she's been very fair so far. So we'll have to see what

00:07:06.400 her verdict is. But we're a long way from getting there. Do we know yet? And I obviously the defense

00:07:11.640 doesn't have to pony up its case until it's time to do so. But has there been any indication from

00:07:17.940 the defense at how they're going to handle things once the Crown's done and it shifts to them?

00:07:23.660 There hasn't been a lot of indication thus far. They've mostly been poking holes in the arguments

00:07:28.300 of some of the people testifying in the Ottawa witnesses. One of them was Zexy Lee, as I'm sure you

00:07:33.920 remember, she was the lead plaintiff of the injunction against honking. And she testified at the

00:07:38.800 Public Order Emergency Commission. And lawyer Lawrence Greenspawn kind of...

00:07:44.840 Now this is just for people to know this is Tamara Leach's lawyer, Lawrence. 0.98

00:07:48.060 Right, right. And he was saying that she was sort of contradicting earlier testimony she had

00:07:52.120 at the Public Order Emergency Commission and that what she was saying wasn't fully accurate. And he

00:07:57.360 also mentioned a clip where she's seen swearing at these people and being very, you know, a little bit

00:08:04.660 angry at them as is understandable. But so far, it's just been methodically picking apart those

00:08:10.180 arguments. And we haven't seen a real indication of what exactly their response is going to be once

00:08:14.760 they get to that point. Matthew Horwood with the Epoch Times in Ottawa. Good to talk to you,

00:08:19.260 Matthew. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you, Andrew. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to

00:08:22.780 The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:08:28.660 www.tnc.news.com

Juno News - October 21, 2023

Ottawa residents testify as Tamara Lich trial continues

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