Juno News - June 28, 2022


The persecution continues： Tamara Lich re-arrested in Alberta


Episode Stats

Length

39 minutes

Words per Minute

175.8181

Word Count

6,990

Sentence Count

255

Misogynist Sentences

22

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:04.800 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.700 Hello, welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.
00:00:18.940 Another live edition of the program, Tuesday, June 28th, 2022.
00:00:24.980 I don't want to beat around the bush here.
00:00:27.520 What happened last night in Medicine Hat is shameful.
00:00:31.800 We have the re-arrest of Tamara Leach, the organizer, fundraiser, spiritual leader, if you will, of the Freedom Convoy.
00:00:41.800 I saw Tamara just two weeks ago at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom's George Jonas Awards Freedom Dinner.
00:00:49.140 And at this dinner, she gave a speech.
00:00:51.820 She was given the George Jonas Award, which is quite prestigious in the freedom community
00:00:56.620 in this country, which is sadly not nearly as large as it should be.
00:01:01.080 And she spoke about freedom, not about the convoy.
00:01:05.120 She spoke about freedom.
00:01:06.620 It was very eloquent.
00:01:07.540 She talked about Athens.
00:01:08.660 She talked about democracy.
00:01:10.280 She talked about the idea of human liberty.
00:01:12.900 And she brought everyone to their feet, standing ovations, tears, because this is a woman who
00:01:17.980 has not just spoken about this, but has lived it.
00:01:21.820 spent more than two weeks, two and a half weeks behind bars after her initial arrest and now has
00:01:27.240 been arrested yet again by police and medicine at this time at the behest of Ottawa police and
00:01:33.560 she's en route back to Ottawa now where she will appear in court tomorrow and I want to talk about
00:01:38.920 this in a little bit of detail here. There are still some things we don't have answers to but
00:01:43.760 I think we can speak to the broader idea here that we're seeing an ongoing persecution of Tamara 0.76
00:01:50.060 Leach here. Keith Wilson was the lead lawyer for the Freedom Convoy. He joins me on the line now.
00:01:55.860 Keith, you know, you and I spoke a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was the beginning of last week,
00:01:59.980 and we were agreeing, sadly, on how there are no shortage of conversations that we need to have as
00:02:06.220 two people that care about freedom. And here we are. Again, yes. Let's go through what we do know
00:02:16.720 first. We do know that this is about an allegation from police that she violated
00:02:21.720 bail conditions. We do know that this was a Canada-wide warrant. Is that typical for that
00:02:28.460 supposed or alleged infraction? Sure. So let me set the stage. So yesterday at about five o'clock,
00:02:36.820 I received a phone call from my co-counsel, Eva Chipiak, who had received a call from Tamara,
00:02:42.840 who had just been arrested and the arrest occurred in medicine hat tamara works in medicine hat
00:02:48.920 lives in medicine hat and it appears to be as she was leaving work um complete surprise
00:02:55.840 no forewarning i mean it's not like the police didn't know where she was it's not like she was
00:03:01.960 hiding out you know in an attic somewhere um so the the uh she was arrested taken to the remand
00:03:12.580 Centre in Medicine Hat and the allegation was that she had breached her bail conditions
00:03:20.180 and that there was a Canada wide warrant issued for her now you know if you're not a criminal
00:03:26.260 lawyer or you don't you know engage and you're not a judge in the criminal justice system
00:03:32.660 or a police officer Canada wide warrant you'd probably think they're very common they're not
00:03:39.060 what's been explained to me by the experts in the area is that they're very rare and they're
00:03:44.820 usually reserved for the worst of the worst criminals for murderers for multiple serial 0.55
00:03:50.820 rapists for very violent criminals so the fact that this five foot tall grandmother mother 1.00
00:04:01.460 um no criminal record used to work as the 9-1-1 dispatcher for the medicine hat police 1.00
00:04:08.940 uh law-abiding citizen would be have a canada-wide warrant issued for her just before canada day
00:04:17.020 is remarkable do we know which bail condition or conditions police are saying she violated
00:04:25.280 Yes, as of about three hours ago, I've received. So as you know, Andrew, my role, I'm contract lawyer with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms. We're representing Tamara and Chris Barber and Sean Thiessen and Tom Marazzo and all these other individuals who have been sued in the class action lawsuit, $300 million lawsuit by the personal injury lawyer in Ottawa.
00:04:48.140 in other news yesterday we found out in the good news department that the public inquiry
00:04:56.140 commissioner the judge appointed by the prime minister to hold a public inquiry commissioner
00:05:01.020 a commission into the invocation of the emergencies act uh had agreed that that tamara and chris and
00:05:08.900 tom and my other clients could be represented by me and eva in that public inquiry process
00:05:13.820 and that we got full standing that was the good news of the day um so i represent tamara in a
00:05:18.860 number of different capacities but i'm not a criminal lawyer so we have specialized criminal
00:05:22.140 lawyers so i've received detailed briefings this afternoon from them so uh we now know that the 0.58
00:05:28.460 alleged breach is that one of her conditions in addition to her not being allowed to talk about
00:05:35.340 criticizing the government for covet 19 restrictions or support in favor of the
00:05:40.700 freedom convoy whatever that means and that should be troubling in its own right to anybody listening
00:05:47.340 in addition she was not allowed to have communications with certain individuals
00:05:53.820 one of them was tom marazzo but there was a big exception which was except in the presence
00:05:59.740 of legal counsel because they've all been sued together so they need to be able to to to speak
00:06:05.740 to counsel they were invited by the commissioner of the public inquiry to get counsel and participate
00:06:11.820 in that so you can see there's a legitimate need for him them to have communication so um
00:06:18.060 at the awards dinner after you know everybody was mingling i wasn't there but you were there and
00:06:23.420 many others were um off camera the lawyers were there and someone asked to take a picture with
00:06:29.900 Tamara. She was with Tamara and Tom and a few other key players from Ottawa, from the Freedom
00:06:38.580 Convoy. Embracing, there it is. In Trudeau's Canada, that's right there what gets you
00:06:48.560 a Canada-wide warrant for your arrest. Police officers flying in from across the country to
00:06:54.380 put you in handcuffs and shackles and take you back to Ottawa. That's all it takes. Remarkable.
00:07:01.380 What? Were they not dressed up enough? Like, come on. Army Tom is the retired Canadian
00:07:08.500 Air Force or Air Force's captain. These are incredible examples of Canadians. So in any event,
00:07:17.940 it's that photograph right there. And of course, what you don't see in the photograph,
00:07:22.520 which you would have saw while you were there, was there was a lot of lawyers in the room,
00:07:26.680 including a number of whom are on my teams representing Tamara and Tom.
00:07:32.660 Yeah, I think Tamara's criminal legal team was half of one of the tables, which was sitting,
00:07:38.260 I think it's just out of frame from where that picture was. And I didn't see the picture taken,
00:07:42.940 but I know where it was taken because I was at that dinner. And I noticed that before we learned
00:07:48.180 what you just shared, and I appreciate you sharing that, Keith, there were a bunch of
00:07:51.520 reporters that were tweeting out that photo as though it is a silver bullet. And they were all
00:07:55.460 conspicuously leaving out that caveat that you mentioned of in the presence of counsel. Now,
00:08:01.200 would you say, and I'm assuming not, but how would you respond to people that say the spirit
00:08:06.560 of that condition was not just lawyers in the room, but specific meetings that were to
00:08:12.560 perhaps discuss legal strategy? Well, the reality is I've been a lawyer for 28 years now. And
00:08:20.800 And if I'm at an event like that with my clients, what do you think the probability is that they come to me and don't ask me something about their case and don't discuss, hey, you know, did you get the application filed for the Emergencies Act on time yesterday?
00:08:38.420 And you think the judge that was appointed by Trudeau is actually going to let us testify, you know, and tell the truth.
00:08:43.940 So I don't appreciate that distinction.
00:08:46.600 I think it's wishful thinking and not realistic about how the real world works.
00:08:50.800 But again, I think we also need to take a step back here.
00:08:54.360 Why is there bail conditions in the first place? 1.00
00:08:57.380 There's bail conditions because she's alleged to have committed the crime of counseling mischief. 0.90
00:09:07.920 Not assault, not insurrection.
00:09:10.720 And just for the record, Tamara and the Freedom Convoy leaders were always crystal clear.
00:09:16.440 They did not support the MOU from Canada Unity, that other group.
00:09:20.140 Canada unity started in 2019. The convoy started in January 2022. The convoy was always clear that
00:09:30.280 the only way a government changes is through normal lawful elections called by the prime
00:09:34.580 minister full stop. So there was no insurrection. There was no violence. All of these allegations
00:09:42.420 of foreign money, arson, guns, rapes have all been proven false or retracted. So she's under
00:09:49.800 these weird bill conditions, highly restrictive, because of an underlying allegation of a crime
00:09:55.620 of counseling mischief. And I think we all know what's happening here, and that is she's embarrassed
00:10:02.520 the prime minister, and the prime minister is angry and has sent the message out to all of his
00:10:08.840 people that you shall do what you can to punish this person. How else do you explain that someone
00:10:15.820 with an underlying charge of mischief whose bail breach is being photographed in an evening dress
00:10:23.580 with a former army officer in his suit is justification for taxpayer expense of flying
00:10:30.300 an aircraft from ottawa with detectives to shackle and chain her back to ottawa i want to put up on
00:10:36.820 the screen here a little a section it's not the whole uh list of conditions but a section of the
00:10:42.080 bail conditions that Tamara Leach is subjected to here. And you've addressed some of these,
00:10:47.760 but I want people to just to see the wording of this. So at the top there, there's all of the
00:10:51.760 people she can't talk to except in the presence of counsel. It says right there, no organization
00:10:57.160 or promotion of anti-COVID mandate activities and Freedom Convoy activities. But number nine,
00:11:03.300 you are not to verbally in writing financially or by any other means support anything related
00:11:09.380 to the Freedom Convoy. This one is, to me, worse than the social media ban in the sense that the
00:11:16.340 social media ban is incredibly restrictive. She can't keep in touch with her family the way they
00:11:20.800 all want to get in touch with. But you know if you're following or not following that one.
00:11:25.120 That line about support for the Freedom Convoy, I mean, a prosecutor operating in bad faith
00:11:31.260 could put anything in that box if they really wanted to. It doesn't mean it would be held up,
00:11:37.040 But it is a gag order that is absolutely restrictive on her right to free speech.
00:11:42.940 And I know that there are people in this country that should care a lot more about that and don't.
00:11:47.940 So I think when you talk about the existence of the bail conditions and the substance of those conditions, you're right.
00:11:53.280 That is the bigger story here and the bigger injustice that few people seem to be as alarmed by as they should.
00:11:59.260 yeah and and that the conditions you just put up uh me being the lawyer i gotta look for details
00:12:06.320 are actually the previous ones just so yeah yeah that's the one i had but they have but the just
00:12:11.920 of them is the same and i just that's why if you're wondering why i's looking off screen i was
00:12:15.680 bringing them up and comparing the wording this is the thing you know the number of requests that
00:12:22.740 i would get from tamara and chris barber because he's got restrictive bail conditions as well
00:12:27.420 it was often daily sometimes it was three times a day you know um uh uh i was just about to say
00:12:35.600 something i won't because the police might misunderstand it but the reality is this
00:12:39.760 these bail conditions are firstly so onerous punitive and vague that these individuals are
00:12:48.900 constantly walking on eggshells as to okay is that a breach of the condition is this a breach
00:12:53.700 of the condition am i going to suddenly get arrested when i'm driving home at the end of
00:12:58.420 the day you know am i going to be shackled and put in a plane and flown back to ottawa so
00:13:02.560 this is there's nothing about this that is reflective of the values as a canadian that i
00:13:11.500 was raised with true north strong and free you know respect for the charter respect for individuals
00:13:18.680 respect for diversity diversity of identity of culture of religion of views this prime minister
00:13:25.960 and his ruthless government have sown incredible divisions in our country and they're continuing
00:13:34.040 to use both punish tamara for being someone who stands up and says this is not right this is not
00:13:41.880 my canada we can do better as canadians we can we can be accommodating accepting of different views
00:13:48.280 even with the history we've been through with covid um and then seeks at the same time
00:13:54.600 manipulate and turn this up think about this andrew if you're in ottawa and you're the police
00:14:02.120 chief or you're the minister of public safety or the all of these different titles they have there's
00:14:08.040 so many ministerial titles they just had to give so many of them jobs they created these micro
00:14:11.960 departments but um and you're concerned that there's going to be a lot of people in ottawa
00:14:17.720 which we've heard there have been and tamara and the others have had nothing to do with it
00:14:22.280 and tamara was not even going to be in ottawa for canada no absolutely no way she was going to be
00:14:26.760 at a thing in a little party in alberta i know you're a police you're the police chief and you
00:14:31.560 want to keep things quieted down right and you know there's going to be a lot of people there
00:14:36.200 there's there always is every year but even more so this year because of what's going on in our
00:14:40.360 country so you bring tamara and fly her in to ottawa right before the day before canada day
00:14:51.160 put her in the jail in the center of ottawa come on so there is a concern upon many of the people
00:14:58.600 on the board of directors the original convoy leaders that this is an intentional provocative
00:15:03.400 mood or move and trying to take advantage of the angry mood so one of the things that i know tamara
00:15:10.040 wants me to say to you and and all the listeners and watch your viewers is she has always advocated
00:15:16.740 peace she has always advocated respect for the rule of law and to do things in a non-violent way
00:15:23.580 and that's what she would want Canadians who are gathering in Ottawa now because it's Canada Day
00:15:29.360 and for the extra reason that we're in these unprecedented times to be respectful to peace
00:15:37.220 love respect don't don't take the bait the truckers were so good in ottawa every time the
00:15:43.000 police provoked they said nope we're not getting violent who got violent in the end the police
00:15:48.940 not the truckers not the citizens so i know that's the message i've said to myself in doing this
00:15:55.020 interview what would tamara want me to get out for her her last words to me were tell canada when 0.90
00:16:02.820 she got arrested, by the way, make it known that this has happened. So that's a message I know she 1.00
00:16:09.300 would want delivered. Is your belief, I mean, because I've always felt that the state was
00:16:14.460 trying to throw the book at Tamara for the reasons you've mentioned in the past. And in this
00:16:18.720 discussion, you know, they don't like how she embarrassed them and also to dissuade any other
00:16:22.780 people that might want to take a stand for freedom from doing that. But is your view, Keith, that
00:16:27.260 there's also a deliberate attempt perhaps to inflame, a deliberate attempt to bait people
00:16:33.740 that are supportive of Tamara, supportive of the Freedom Convoy, to bait them into something that
00:16:38.900 would again further embolden the government's narrative about them? Well, I mean, the government's
00:16:44.940 officials are leaving you with a bad choice. You either have to conclude that they're stupid
00:16:51.640 in doing this. There's no reason why if they were going to go as far as arresting her that they
00:16:57.000 couldn't keep her in the remand center and lethbridge or or medicine had it's not like it
00:17:01.300 was full um so why did they take the extraordinary step of rushing her to ottawa right in advance so
00:17:08.560 they're either still the hearings are done by zoom now anyway i think exactly or they're being
00:17:14.000 provocative and i don't know which one it is it could be it could be a bit of both maybe there's
00:17:20.120 half the room that's being provocative and wants a big confrontation so they can go and beat up
00:17:24.960 and brutalize Canadians again,
00:17:26.840 or there's a bunch in the room
00:17:29.840 that are just really unbright.
00:17:33.560 When we're looking at this unfold,
00:17:36.660 I know before the George Jonas dinner in Toronto,
00:17:40.760 the Crown was trying to use
00:17:42.280 her future acceptance of that award 0.51
00:17:44.520 as justification to throw her back in jail.
00:17:47.200 And when her bail conditions were being reviewed,
00:17:49.500 the Crown was trying to say
00:17:50.860 that her accepting this award
00:17:52.180 was her breaching her conditions effectively.
00:17:54.440 And the judge seemed to not take too kindly to that argument, although the judge also
00:17:59.940 didn't lift as many of the bail restrictions as Tamara Leach and her counsel were trying
00:18:04.700 to.
00:18:05.380 But that says to me that they were always just looking for that exact moment that they
00:18:10.940 could use this event or some other event to send her back into jail.
00:18:14.920 Like, that's always been the goal. 0.74
00:18:16.680 And it's worry about the evidence, worry about the justification later.
00:18:19.600 So this photo pops up.
00:18:21.120 And I don't know if the crown had, you know, spies at the dinner or whatever that had to donate to the JCCF.
00:18:25.980 But, you know, wait for the photo to pop up and they say, OK, boom, this is what we're going to use.
00:18:30.080 And it does strike me as odd. That event was two weeks ago. Why now?
00:18:35.140 Yeah. And the other thing we learned is that the warrant was issued on June 22nd.
00:18:40.920 That we learned that. So they've been sitting they had been sitting on it for five days.
00:18:44.940 Yeah.
00:18:45.180 wow see evidence so this is even the fact that i just as i'm listening to you carefully uh i just
00:18:56.680 this is crazy that that we've had someone arrested for this that they've spent this much time in jail
00:19:02.900 to begin with before they got released then they got released on the conditions that they got
00:19:06.860 released on no social media which is basically house arrest nowadays because that's how everybody
00:19:12.420 communicates and gets their information uh then she can't say anything critical of the government
00:19:17.620 related to covid that she restrictions that she can't advocate for freedom she can't associate
00:19:23.700 with certain people that she's on the one hand involved in defending a crazy class action personal
00:19:29.460 injury lawsuit uh as well as simultaneously being invited to give testimony in the public inquiry
00:19:35.860 related to the invocations the emergencies act and then they go and arrest her right before canada day
00:19:41.940 and flyer right into the epicenter of what's about to be a new protest
00:19:50.740 and the the cruel irony of this too i mean there's a lot of cruelty in this but
00:19:54.660 the protesters or i shouldn't say that the people that were going to be celebrating on canada day in
00:20:00.260 ottawa were deliberately saying it wasn't a protest they were saying they were there to
00:20:04.340 have a party and have a canada day festival many of them may have become friends and gotten to know
00:20:08.740 each other during the convoy in January, February. But it wasn't even going to be really a protest,
00:20:14.520 as I understand it. Now it will be. And that's where you have to wonder if there was something
00:20:20.100 deliberate or at the very least an understanding about it. This event that was planned has very
00:20:25.720 quickly shifted and is shifting in real time, I think, from one that was just going to be a party
00:20:29.820 to one that's going to have people who are angry. And I think, yeah, the call for peace, the call
00:20:33.820 to remain in that same spirit of the convoy is a critical one.
00:20:38.920 Yeah, and that's Tamara's loudest message.
00:20:41.660 You know, be peaceful, be respectful.
00:20:44.380 Don't stoop to the government's level.
00:20:46.520 They're the bullies.
00:20:48.000 We're the law-abiding ones.
00:20:49.580 They're the ones who are not following the rule of law.
00:20:53.200 That's where the expression hold the line comes from for freedom fighters
00:20:56.620 is wanting the government to follow the rule of law
00:20:59.640 and stop this overreach of government and respect for the charter.
00:21:03.820 where is this going from here i mean the bigger picture as well but also the the logistics of
00:21:11.260 this i know she has to appear before another judge in ottawa as i understand she formally
00:21:15.980 gets another charge added of breaching her bail condition so are we going to see her held in jail
00:21:22.760 for a lengthy period of time again or is there a possibility that once she gets to ottawa after
00:21:27.420 that hearing she's released again it is possible it's possible that the hearing will occur
00:21:33.660 there's uncertainty as to where she is right at this moment i can tell you that
00:21:38.080 the indication we had a few hours ago was that she was unlikely they would be able to transport her
00:21:46.380 until monday july 4th however the ottawa city police if you go to their twitter feed you will
00:21:55.300 see that they're advertising this in real time like it's some reality tv show um highly inappropriate
00:22:03.460 but whatever uh it's just the way the ottawa city police rolls um and they tweeted twice about it
00:22:11.220 being a canada wide warrant which you would think something they wouldn't want to advertise given
00:22:15.700 how how incriminating that is in its own right but then they've now indicated that they're expecting
00:22:21.940 her to be back uh in uh in and if you go to the next tweet that came up after that one
00:22:27.860 uh might be in the one there you go um yeah that she's scheduled to appear in court tomorrow so
00:22:33.460 she's either going to be in court tomorrow uh in ottawa or uh on thursday that you know and so if
00:22:40.580 she gets flat out i just like have you guys thought this through but anyway it's it's a tragic time
00:22:48.180 It's a time that Canadians need to really reflect on where their country's going and
00:22:53.580 raise their voice and contact their MPs and share their concerns with their neighbours.
00:22:59.520 That's how we do things in a democracy.
00:23:02.840 Just one final question, if I may, Keith.
00:23:05.220 I know you spoke to her.
00:23:06.100 I don't know how long you were able to speak to her, but how was her mood?
00:23:10.140 Because I've seen she's expressed such tremendous resilience in the past.
00:23:14.160 And even in her acceptance speech at the Freedom Award dinner for the JCCF, she was not bitter.
00:23:20.240 She was very passionate.
00:23:22.080 How is she now after being arrested yet again?
00:23:27.120 Upset.
00:23:28.700 Upset.
00:23:29.560 Not the same disposition at all.
00:23:32.440 And I think partly because she was caught off guard.
00:23:35.520 She kind of had a chance to psychologically prepare for it last time.
00:23:39.120 You know, she knew the rumors where she was about to be arrested.
00:23:42.500 i think this caught her completely off guard and she's also at a situation trying to rebuild her
00:23:47.140 life i mean this has had a huge financial impact on her and she has bills to pay and and kids and
00:23:52.820 grandkids to help look after as well and and now she's going to lose all this income and and if
00:23:58.820 she another thing that's really worrying her is like how is she going to get home she doesn't
00:24:03.140 have the money to buy a plane ticket so it's just crazy what's going on um and uh we're going to try
00:24:09.700 and find a way to to get her financial support well thank you very much for doing that not just
00:24:16.100 taking up this and all the related cases but also explaining this to people when i've had
00:24:20.980 friends and colleagues from other countries look at this it's they're in disbelief and they think
00:24:25.620 i'm lying to them or exaggerating when i i talk about some of these things so uh they're real
00:24:30.420 and hopefully we'll find we're on the right side of history with them but hopefully we'll find
00:24:34.500 that that starts to be appreciated in the courts keith wilson a tremendous lawyer from edmonton
00:24:39.220 joins us now. Keith, thank you very much. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. That is Keith Wilson.
00:24:45.580 And you know, I've got to say a couple of things about Tamara Leach personally here, because I've
00:24:51.240 had some opportunities going back to January of 2022 to speak with her. And as I mentioned,
00:24:57.320 resilience is the word I would take. I don't even think she's someone I would have defined as a
00:25:01.900 fighter in the sense that she's not looking to scrap always. She's not looking for the fight. 0.77
00:25:05.920 the fight has certainly found her and she's risen to it but she's not someone that has been looking
00:25:11.600 to fight and i've wanted to sit down with her and have a formal interview where she can tell her
00:25:18.740 story and the reason we've not been able to do that is because of these bail conditions which
00:25:24.580 prevent her from speaking about her story in a way that could not result in her being arrested 0.74
00:25:30.760 As we see, that photo, that photo that mainstream media were circulating has gotten her arrested.
00:25:36.440 I want to put up one of the media tweets that was circulating yesterday from Mackenzie Gray at CTV.
00:25:42.400 Her arrest is likely tied to what the Crown would deem to be Leach breaking bail conditions.
00:25:47.560 Last week at the JCCF Awards in Toronto, Leach took a picture with Tom Marazzo.
00:25:52.180 A bail condition for Leach is that she not be with Marazzo.
00:25:55.220 Now, as we know from Keith, it sounds like this photo was actually part of the claim against her,
00:25:59.780 but it was baseless speculation from journalists yesterday. And they were all in their reporting of
00:26:06.500 that, failing to acknowledge that one very important caveat. And we're going to put the
00:26:11.540 bail conditions up again, that very important caveat. And you can see it on the top there,
00:26:16.080 except in the presence of counsel, except in the presence of counsel. And you can talk about,
00:26:22.120 oh, the spirit of the law, the letter of the law, but it says what it says. They are in the presence
00:26:26.140 of counsel at that event. And Tom Marazo, by the way, not even facing charges, not even facing
00:26:32.340 charges for the Freedom Convoy, although he is a defendant in the lawsuit that's been filed by
00:26:39.680 residents of downtown Ottawa. So Tamara Leach has been prevented from using social media, prevented
00:26:47.280 from telling her story. She's allowed to keep in contact with people privately. And I know
00:26:51.420 people have been sending her letters from all over the world, and she may not even be allowed
00:26:56.120 to reply to them. I don't know. Or maybe she has to reply and just speak in generic platitudes,
00:27:00.680 like she's responding to letters that are coming across a politician's desk. She's tried to move 0.91
00:27:06.460 on with her life. I mean, if you looked interestingly enough at this event she was at
00:27:10.100 on the weekend, Sheila Gunn-Reed was there. Tamara Leach, a lot of people don't know,
00:27:14.360 was actually in a band before the convoy, and she got the band together in the most
00:27:19.440 literal sense. And actually, she's quite good.
00:27:26.120 Well, midnight, headlight, find you on a rainy night, steep bread, up ahead, slowin'
00:27:37.780 down, makin' no time, gotta keep it rollin', those windchill wipers, slappin' out of tempo,
00:27:48.080 So that was in Alberta.
00:28:12.180 She got the band together.
00:28:13.500 Sheila Gunn-Reed of Rebel News caught that.
00:28:15.600 And yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. 1.00
00:28:17.400 so there she is just chipper as can be happy singing playing guitar doing all that and then
00:28:23.320 a few days later she finds herself arrested and quickly absconded with to get back to ottawa and
00:28:30.680 interestingly enough when she had her bail conditions reviewed however many weeks back it
00:28:34.440 was one of the previous conditions was that she wasn't allowed to go to ottawa and she actually
00:28:40.920 got for reasons that can't be publicly disclosed because there's a publication ban on them and i'm
00:28:46.600 aware they're they're very they're good reasons but she was banned from going back to ottawa
00:28:52.520 originally and then she got that condition lifted so the judge said yeah yeah you're allowed to go
00:28:57.320 back into ottawa now i don't think she made it back to ottawa until now so how cruel that the
00:29:03.320 court says yeah you're allowed to go to ottawa and then her next trip there is presumably a one-way
00:29:07.960 ticket but courtesy of you know ottawa police to get her in front of a judge to answer to a charge
00:29:14.840 And it shows that they've always wanted her locked up.
00:29:19.520 They've always wanted her locked up.
00:29:21.900 And that is the one inescapable part here that I don't think maybe, you know what, maybe
00:29:30.940 people that hate the convoy are aware of that because they agree with it.
00:29:34.300 I mean, if you looked on Twitter in response to our story and other coverage that she was
00:29:38.360 behind bars, people were giddy online.
00:29:40.200 People were laughing, joking, cheering about it, saying, yeah, good.
00:29:43.640 throwing these baseless terms like, oh, treason and sedition and all that stuff on her when,
00:29:49.240 I mean, those charges have never been laid. As Keith Wilson mentioned, the goal of the convoy
00:29:52.940 was always about the peaceful, peaceful advancing of this message in opposition to vaccine mandates
00:30:00.560 and vaccine passports, a message of freedom. And we are live. So if you have any questions you want
00:30:07.540 to share with them, feel free to put them in the chat, whether you're watching on Facebook or
00:30:10.840 Rumble or YouTube. We'll try to get to a few of your questions as the show goes on here, but I just
00:30:16.560 want to go over a couple of key details here. So Ottawa police say that they got a warrant for her
00:30:23.000 arrest, a Canada-wide warrant, the kind they would put out for murderers, so that police would pick
00:30:28.360 her up on her way out of work in Medicine Hat, which by the way is a rather humiliating way to go
00:30:33.820 because your colleagues, your co-workers, they'll see you get arrested. I can't imagine that's a
00:30:39.660 vision people want. They couldn't have waited until she got home. I don't think she's a flight
00:30:43.880 risk because like Keith mentioned, she's just going about her life, going to work, going home,
00:30:47.920 going to work, going home. So they bring her back to Ottawa. She may, according to Ottawa police,
00:30:53.440 end up in front of a judge tomorrow, but her lawyers are saying they've heard she might not
00:30:58.360 end up in front of a judge until Monday or Tuesday of next week. Again, uncertainty. They
00:31:05.420 didn't they weren't even able to say where she is when the lawyers don't know where their clients
00:31:10.020 are that strikes me as a little bit of a concerning detail when it comes to things like due process
00:31:15.960 and justice and all of that jazz so you look at all of this and i have to ask how can anyone say
00:31:25.660 this is not a witch hunt how can anyone say this isn't a political prosecution that makes her
00:31:32.740 effectively a political prisoner. There's no violence. I mean, people get hung up on this
00:31:39.320 idea of whether it was a legal or illegal protest. And I should actually correct the record here
00:31:44.920 because there is this one article on some website. I can't even remember the name of the website. It
00:31:49.340 has farmers in the title or something. But it's an article that said a judge has declared the
00:31:53.860 vaccine mandate protest of the Freedom Convoy to be legal. That a judge in the injunction case said
00:32:00.280 it's a legal protest. That's not entirely true. No judge has decided whether this protest in Ottawa
00:32:05.360 was legal or illegal. What people are referring to is that in that injunction case, the judge said
00:32:12.240 that it was specifically limiting its decision to the horn honking question. And apart from the
00:32:18.660 horn honking, they said, yeah, we're not doing anything to do with anyone else or anything else
00:32:23.380 that's going on on Wellington Street or in Ottawa. We're just dealing with the horn honking. So the
00:32:27.800 judge was basically saying this case is about this one specific thing as far as the injunction is
00:32:33.380 concerned. So that judge didn't say the protest was legal. No judge has said that. But conversely,
00:32:37.840 no judge has said it's illegal either. And the big question would be whether or not the charges
00:32:45.940 of mischief or counseling mischief or these other convoy-related charges that have been
00:32:50.580 placed against people like Tamara Leach and Chris Barber actually stick. And I would be baffled
00:32:57.660 be baffled to see the prosecution let up on this. It's not like a lot of these other COVID-related
00:33:04.200 tickets and lockdown fines from early on in the pandemic that I think will eventually just get
00:33:09.820 dropped. This one they want to see proceed. If you've seen the Assistant Crown's conduct in the
00:33:17.520 bail hearings for Tamara Leach, you'll see they want to not just throw the book at her. They want
00:33:22.540 to throw every book. They want to throw the whole library at her. And that was why when she was
00:33:27.100 announced as the future recipient of the George Jonas Freedom Award, they had said, oh, she's 1.00
00:33:33.000 violating her bail. She's got to go. I get a lot of people asking, how did she break her bail 1.00
00:33:38.680 conditions? How did she break her bail? Joanne asked, Sean asked. Well, let's not use the 0.96
00:33:44.580 government's, the police's, the Crown's language here. Let's not ask the question, how did she
00:33:50.540 break her bail conditions? I think the question is, how are they saying she broke her bail
00:33:55.700 conditions. How are they saying? They're saying, according to Keith Wilson, that this photograph
00:34:00.420 of Tamara Leach at the George Jonas Freedom Award dinner, this photograph in which she and a number
00:34:06.340 of other people, if we can put the photo back up on the screen, please, they're saying that this
00:34:10.780 photo of her, in which second from the right there is Tom Marazzo, her fellow organizer,
00:34:18.320 violates the section of her bail conditions that say she can't have contact with a number of these
00:34:22.580 people of which Tom Marazzo is one of them. And this is that section, which I showed earlier,
00:34:27.220 says, except in the presence of counsel, except in the presence of counsel. And Keith Wilson's
00:34:34.260 saying here, yeah, the lawyers were everywhere. They were very much in the presence of both
00:34:37.980 of their lawyers, both of their counsel, if you will. So if this is the case, this will come down
00:34:44.620 to a judge's decision on what constitutes presence. Does the judge have to be standing
00:34:49.860 between Tom and Tamara with a meter stick or can, or a lawyer, sorry, not the judge, the lawyer,
00:34:54.820 does the lawyer have to be standing between them with a meter stick or can the lawyers be
00:34:57.900 around the room watching, keeping an eye on this? Is that enough to satisfy that question of are
00:35:04.040 they in the presence of counsel? But the fact that it's coming down to a question like that
00:35:09.920 is, I think, indicative of the fact that they just want to lock her up and throw away the key.
00:35:15.540 That's been the goal since the beginning and it continues to be the goal. And, you know,
00:35:19.240 it's only it's all you can only expect someone to fight for so long before they no longer have
00:35:26.060 the energy the will or or the means the means to fight you know she does not i mean her husband's
00:35:31.740 out there he's presumably working and she was working they were working they were earning an
00:35:35.640 income she can't afford no one can afford to just stay locked up indefinitely which shamefully seems
00:35:41.780 to be the ottawa police services mo with all of this we've got to end things there my thanks to
00:35:48.780 all of you for tuning into the program here. Canada's most irreverent talk show. We'll keep
00:35:53.520 up on this as the week progresses. And also the Conservative Leadership Series continues. The next
00:35:58.580 part coming out later this week is going to be my sit-down interview with Roman Babber, the
00:36:03.580 Conservative Leadership Candidate. But we'll have all of the candidates that we'll get through
00:36:08.020 hopefully in the weeks ahead. So thanks very much all of you for your kind words on that.
00:36:12.120 And also because it came out on Friday, my book, The Freedom Convoy, the inside story of three
00:36:17.920 weeks that shook the world. I've had people that have reached out to me over the weekend
00:36:21.100 and yesterday saying they've got their copies, they've read it, they've enjoyed it. Haven't had
00:36:25.780 anyone say they hadn't enjoyed it yet, but you know what? I welcome all readers, but I just wanted
00:36:29.820 to say thank you to those who did pick that up. It's a bestseller on Amazon, so you can pick it
00:36:35.100 up on Amazon if you would care to there, and also on, well, I think Indigo's got it, Barnes & Noble
00:36:41.260 has it. You can get it from the publisher, Sutherland House Books, and hopefully at your
00:36:45.280 local bookstore as well. And actually, just before I end, I will say something about my book because
00:36:51.120 I am shamelessly promoting it right now. There was something I uncovered when I was writing the book
00:36:57.460 and I shared something about this on Twitter earlier that I think bears repeating here.
00:37:02.760 Throughout the convoy, when it was in Ottawa, every time police tried to take something away
00:37:08.820 or stop something whether it was police stopping the inflow of fuel or the federal government
00:37:15.580 trying to stop the flow of money or police trying to block food from going into the convoy site
00:37:21.260 every time that happened more of whatever they tried to stop started showing up the next day
00:37:27.180 I'm getting excited I'm banging my microphone around but every time more showed up when police
00:37:32.440 sees fuel people showed up in jerry cans the next day and we're just bringing fuel in left right
00:37:37.220 and center. When police tried to block, I just learned this story last week from one of the
00:37:41.400 convoy organizers. Police blocked a truck from bringing in 20,000 hot dogs. I don't know how
00:37:47.520 big 20,000 hot dogs is. You've got eight in a pack. So you've got a thousand packs would be
00:37:54.540 8,000 hot dogs. You'd have to have 2,000 packs for six. So, you know, we're talking about thousands
00:38:00.180 of packs of hot dogs and the police said no and a woman with i believe it was a lulu lemon bag it
00:38:08.160 might have been a louis vuitton bag but a lulu lemon bag i believe is what it was a yoga bag 1.00
00:38:12.180 started loading it up with hot dogs and bringing them in walking them past police she would dump 0.98
00:38:17.780 it go back fill it up again bring it in dump it fill it in and she would just all day bring in 0.98
00:38:24.000 these 20 000 hot dogs and food was shown up at the convoy left right and center and money police 1.00
00:38:29.740 said, we're going to freeze bank accounts. We're going to seize money, all of this. And what
00:38:33.540 happened? People started bringing cash, hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably when all was
00:38:37.880 said and done, maybe even cracking seven figures. The point of that is that the convoy was a
00:38:43.540 grassroots bottom-up movement. There was no head of the stake to lop off. People like Tamara Leach
00:38:48.560 were certainly leaders of this, but they were not the source of it. So all they do when they try to
00:38:55.700 stop something is cause more of it. This arrest of Tamara Leach, this re-arrest, if they think
00:39:01.720 that's going to stop people from loving the freedom, supporting the convoy, standing up
00:39:06.900 against government overreach, they are sorely mistaken. All they're doing is making people
00:39:11.280 more emboldened to stand up and take up that fight. Not a literal fight, so don't you dare
00:39:16.560 take that out of context, but that political fight, that spiritual fight for liberty. 1.00
00:39:21.700 They made Tamara Leach a martyr.
00:39:23.520 They continue to make her a martyr.
00:39:24.860 And all it does is make people more aware
00:39:27.280 of what it is that we need to do as citizens
00:39:29.760 to stand up against it.
00:39:31.300 We've got to end things there.
00:39:32.360 My thanks to you all.
00:39:33.160 We'll talk to you soon.
00:39:34.080 Thank you, God bless, and good day.
00:39:37.540 For listening to The Andrew Lawton Show,
00:39:39.940 support the program by donating to True North
00:39:42.020 at www.tnc.news.