Juno News - TWO-TIERED Justice： Constitutional Lawyer weighs in on the fate of Freedom Convoy organizers

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Folks, we have a great episode for

00:00:07.320 you today. We have John Carpe, constitutional lawyer, joining the program a little later on.

00:00:12.080 We are going to talk about this day in Canadian history. This is an important day, folks. We are

00:00:16.800 going to find out the fate of Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lynch and Chris Barber. And

00:00:23.040 so we're going to do a little bit of a flashback and look back at what exactly happened in January

00:00:29.240 and February of 2022, the Freedom Convoy, the uprising against COVID tyranny because that

00:00:36.180 was what was happening in our country. We'll talk about how the legacy media hated them in

00:00:41.200 Justin Trudeau's image. Justin Trudeau's narrative was that these were insurrectionists, these were

00:00:46.520 racists, these were bad people, small fringe minority with unacceptable views, and that they 0.98

00:00:51.180 had to be stopped at all costs. And so he did. He used legacy media to completely tarnish their image,

00:00:57.900 to call them the most awful names in the book, and then to use all of the powers of the state

00:01:03.180 in the Emergencies Act to crack down on these peaceful protesters. And now here we are three

00:01:08.360 and a half years later, folks, and we are still fighting this battle. The two brave Freedom Convoy

00:01:13.120 organizers are still standing trial in what I believe is a witch hunt and a political prosecution.

00:01:20.420 And it's really interesting because how you view Tamara Lynch and Chris Barber, it's one of the

00:01:26.500 most polarizing things that I've ever seen in Canadian politics. And it's still a litmus test

00:01:30.320 today for many liberals and people on the political left, right? If you see the Freedom Convoy as a

00:01:37.280 bunch of no-good insurrectionists, sedition, as Mark Carney famously called it, in the Globe and Mail,

00:01:43.940 filled with racists and far-right radicals and funded by mega-Republicans, it's probably because

00:01:49.240 you've been watching the legacy media, you've been viewing through the lens of the CBC.

00:01:54.000 And the rest of the country, the way that we saw, the way that I saw it, was an inspiring,

00:01:59.520 patriotic, heartwarming uprising of Canadians, blue-collar Canadians, Canadians from all

00:02:04.900 backgrounds, just saying enough is enough. We want our lives back. We don't want to live under

00:02:09.580 COVID tyranny anymore. The mandates don't make any sense. The vaccine mandates, the idea that you have

00:02:15.620 to get vaccinated, it doesn't work the way that they said it was going to work, okay?

00:02:19.660 And so that is why. I talked about this on social media, but this is the way I see it.

00:02:24.780 COVID-19 was a story of mass hysteria. It was a moral panic. It was a story of propaganda

00:02:30.980 and textbook government overreach, okay? The story of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

00:02:36.220 and his ultimate demise. He was a story of an incompetent ruler who was exposed for being

00:02:43.520 incompetent. The story of the Canadian truckers is the story of a peaceful, blue-collar uprising

00:02:50.200 against what had become a tyrannical regime. And their story of their prosecution remains.

00:02:56.980 It's a story of Canada's broken justice system, two tiers, and Canada's Laurentian elites tragically

00:03:03.420 misguided priorities. And yes, I do believe that Tamara Lynch and Chris Barber are political

00:03:10.000 prisoners. They're guilty of opposing this overreach, of exposing our foolish Prime Minister

00:03:15.220 at the time, of leading a peaceful protest against tyranny, heroically standing up to the

00:03:20.180 powers that be, representing millions of Canadians, and just simply being on the wrong side of the

00:03:26.060 Laurentian elites. There's no doubt, folks, that the Freedom Convoy marked a change. It was an

00:03:31.700 inflection point in the dark era of COVID. It showed that enough people were opposed to the entire

00:03:38.280 regime and that it didn't make sense and that the science wasn't standing up any longer. And it

00:03:42.640 was the beginning of the end of the COVID restrictions and the beginning of the end

00:03:45.880 of the Trudeau government. And so that is why these people are heroes. And today is another important

00:03:51.940 turning point for our country. We're going to find out later today whether petty tyranny will prevail

00:03:57.260 and whether these political prisoners will actually be thrown in prison for possibly seven or eight

00:04:01.780 years, or whether Canada will arc back towards justice. I said yesterday on the show that

00:04:07.860 I'm still optimistic for the future of Canada. I got a little bit of pushback in so on the

00:04:11.640 on the comments and social media. I don't think Canada is heading in the right direction. I don't

00:04:15.860 think that Canada is on the right path. I don't think that we have the right leadership in Ottawa.

00:04:19.640 But the reason why I'm still hopeful for our country is because of things like the Freedom

00:04:23.680 Convoy, because of the truckers, because of people like Tamara Litch and Chris Barber who are

00:04:27.800 standing up to tyranny. It gives me hope for a country that there are still good people out there

00:04:32.500 that I think the majority of the country is still on the right side deep down, whether they're the silent

00:04:37.640 majority, or whether they are the actual activists in the streets. And so I want to just do a little

00:04:42.720 bit of a flashback to our coverage at True North. I think that we caught on with a lot of Canadians.

00:04:48.560 We really grew our audience during this time. And I want to show you how we were reporting it at the

00:04:54.200 time myself, as well as my colleague Andrew Lawton, who has since gone on to become an elected

00:04:58.600 member of parliament for the Conservatives. At the time he was reporting on the ground in the

00:05:03.200 Freedom Convoy. So we have that montage for you here. The Trucker Convoy was a huge success by

00:05:08.820 every measure. It was one of the strongest movements of patriotism and national unity in

00:05:13.360 recent memory in this country. Meanwhile, the legacy media outed themselves as being aggressively

00:05:17.900 partisan, openly deceitful. The Freedom Convoy is mainstream and it is uniting Canadians regardless

00:05:23.960 of what Justin Trudeau or his cheerleaders in the legacy media have to say about it. He says that

00:05:28.420 you are a small fringe minority, hardly even worth his time. He thinks that you are a nobody. He

00:05:33.940 thinks that you're minuscule. He thinks that you are unimportant. Somebody who doesn't even deserve

00:05:38.980 the basic charter rights supposedly guaranteed to all people in the country. What an amazing,

00:05:44.040 spectacular weekend. It was one of those things that you just, I was glued to my computer screen,

00:05:48.500 glued to the television all weekend long. I couldn't get enough of these beautiful, beautiful images

00:05:52.960 of Canadians coming together. It was celebratory. It was happy. The mood on the ground,

00:05:57.160 as reported by True North journalists who were there, as reported by the thousands of people who

00:06:02.140 became independent journalists by attending the rally, by posting their own images and videos,

00:06:07.120 it was remarkable. We are on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa in front of Centre Block

00:06:12.220 for the Truckers for Freedom Convoy. It hasn't even started yet and this place is packed. We've got

00:06:18.960 trucks lining Wellington Street. We'll show those in just a moment. We've got people from all over the

00:06:23.420 country here and the message is a very simple one. It's not about violence. It's not about white

00:06:28.100 supremacy. It's not about extremism. Well, I mean, if you watch the CBC or listen to Justin Trudeau,

00:06:33.160 it is. No, it's about freedom. It's a very simple message. It's a very unifying message and it's one

00:06:38.800 that the people here are making sure is known. So that was our view. That was our take at the time.

00:06:44.080 It was optimistic. It was happy. Andrew Lawton was jovial. Even just reporting,

00:06:47.280 it was like a breath of fresh air and light at the end of a dark tunnel from COVID. But again,

00:06:52.580 that was our perspective. That was how we saw things and how we were reporting it.

00:06:56.140 But there was a whole other side of the country, a whole other side of Canadians that did not see

00:07:00.880 it that way, that took their cues from the CBC and from Justin Trudeau. And because of that,

00:07:06.060 they still to this day believe that the truckers and the Freedom Convoy was really just about

00:07:11.360 violent uprising, about hatred, about being racist and white supremacist. So apologies for doing this,

00:07:18.840 but here is what our prime minister at the time, I always do a trigger warning when I'm showing videos

00:07:23.100 of Justin Trudeau, but here's our prime minister at the time saying, no, no, no, this isn't a happy

00:07:28.940 uprising. These people are unacceptable. Here, let's play that clip.

00:07:32.760 The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable

00:07:42.960 views that they're expressing do not represent the views of Canadians.

00:07:51.580 Yes, actually they do represent the views of Canadians. And it turns out that it was just,

00:07:55.500 I mean, those, those are maybe perhaps some of the most infamous words from prime minister

00:07:59.160 Justin Trudeau that they are a small fringe minority holding unacceptable views.

00:08:02.760 And so that's sort of when things started to turn dark. We had the emergency's power

00:08:06.620 unleashed. This was from the day, February 18th. So a couple of weeks later when the protest was

00:08:12.860 trampled by the Emergencies Act, police state martial law in Canada. Let's play that clip.

00:08:18.720 Oh, come on through, come on through. What is happening here? Wow. What is this lady doing? 1.00

00:08:26.160 Trampling, trampling horses. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

00:08:32.760 Oh my God. What the hell is that?

00:08:35.120 They just trampled this lady. They just trampled that lady. 1.00

00:08:42.180 And then of course, Andrew Lawton of True North was pepper sprayed, sprayed in the face by police

00:08:47.420 for the crime of just standing there. That was moments after that trampling happened when the

00:08:51.540 police were just given the order to do what they could, do what they had to do to get people out,

00:08:56.060 including spraying journalists, assaulting journalists, and just trying to break up the

00:09:01.040 crowd. And so that was sort of the end of the protests. And thankfully, the mandates and the

00:09:08.140 lockdowns and everything else ended shortly thereafter. But it didn't end for organizers.

00:09:12.800 And so we know that Tamara Litch and Chris Barber have now been on trial for 688 days. They were first

00:09:21.060 arrested over 1,200 days ago. It doesn't typically happen in Canada. Oftentimes, people are dismissed

00:09:28.160 from crimes because of delays in court. Well, this trial itself has been conducted over 45 days. And

00:09:34.760 it's worth noting that Litch and Barber were found not guilty on most charges. So back in April 25,

00:09:41.240 they were convicted of many, they were charged with many things. Most of them, they were found

00:09:45.100 not guilty. The only thing that they were convicted of was mischief, mischief. And so today we will

00:09:51.520 learn what the actual court order will be and what the sentences will be. And to talk about all of

00:09:58.440 this, I'm very pleased today to be joined by our friend, John Carpe. John is a constitutional lawyer,

00:10:02.500 president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. The Justice Centre has provided legal

00:10:07.360 support and funding for Freedom Convoy protesters and organizers, including Chris Barber and Tamara

00:10:12.860 Lynch. And of course, they successfully challenged the Emergencies Act in federal court, which ruled

00:10:17.660 in January 2024 that, yes, that did violate Canada's charter rights. So John, welcome to the podcast.

00:10:24.820 So glad to be with you.

00:10:26.340 So help us understand what is happening today and what do you expect to have happen?

00:10:31.980 Yeah.

00:10:32.640 So Wednesday, July 23rd, Thursday, July 24th, two days of oral argument by the Crown calling for a

00:10:41.200 seven-year jail term for Tamara Lynch and eight years for Chris Barber. And lawyers for Chris Barber

00:10:49.660 and Tamara Lynch are also arguing on sentence. My understanding is that the lawyer for, are arguing

00:10:58.840 for an absolute discharge, meaning no penalty, taking into account the Tamara Lynch has already spent 49

00:11:09.880 days in jail. So the decision will likely be rendered next week, the week of July the 28th or in August.

00:11:19.300 We're not anticipating a decision this week.

00:11:24.260 And so, I mean, maybe help us understand because, I mean, if you're listening to Legacy Media and Justin Trudeau and CBC,

00:11:30.500 I mean, they call this an uprising. They call this an insurrection. I mean, they call it sedition.

00:11:34.240 But the charge of mischief, I mean, that almost seems like something that, you know, a teenager who's caught

00:11:40.340 trespassing and up to no good. I mean, I walk down the streets in Toronto or Ottawa, I see all kinds of mischief

00:11:46.440 on a daily basis, right? People using drugs, people's petty thief, people actually committing crimes.

00:11:52.740 I mean, there's violent crimes in this country. There's a whole litany of issues in our country.

00:11:57.640 And yet this court case is dragging on and the charge of mischief. Can you tell us like how common is that for something like this?

00:12:05.980 So mischief has several, there's different, there's different crimes of mischief that are set out in, in section 4,

00:12:12.440 430 of the criminal code. One of them is property damage, vandalism. So if somebody keys your car or

00:12:19.940 spray paints a wall, that's mischief. It's also the unlawful interference with the use and enjoyment of

00:12:28.500 property. So for example, if you are walking down the sidewalk and I get in your way and obstruct you,

00:12:34.660 that's mischief because you lawfully can walk down the sidewalk. Or if you're trying to get into or out of

00:12:41.440 your house, physical obstruction that prevents people from doing what they have a legal right to

00:12:47.520 do is mischief. And so I've, I've read the 105 page decision and you know, it's, it's debatable.

00:12:56.500 We'll have to wait and see whether the verdict is going to be appealed, but the judge ruled that there

00:13:03.480 was interference with, um, that, that some Ottawa residents, um, had interference with the lawful use

00:13:12.360 and enjoyment of their own property because some of the streets were too clogged up or people had

00:13:18.480 trouble, uh, driving their cars out, out of their apartment building, parkades, uh, people had trouble

00:13:26.280 getting around. So there's a finding of guilt on the, uh, on the obstruction, uh, and encouraging that

00:13:33.420 insofar as Tamara Leach and Chris Barber called on Canadians to come to Ottawa and to, to protest

00:13:40.200 peacefully. But so that, that's a verdict that, that might be appealed. It's interesting because

00:13:46.760 usually it's the left that's calling for civil disobedience and sort of peaceful protest. And yes,

00:13:51.560 technically there are some rules that are broken if you're blocking traffic or something like that,

00:13:55.120 but I'm sorry, from where I'm standing, we have seen environmental protests that block freeways,

00:14:00.240 that block pipelines, that block people from getting to work. We've seen the same thing after the hoax

00:14:05.840 regarding the unmarked graves, where there were massive violent protests and the tearing down of

00:14:11.040 statues that are symbolic of our country, uh, in the, in, in the aftermath. Well, I mean, since 2023,

00:14:17.040 we have seen weekly or monthly, uh, Hamasnik protests where they, again, they shut down freeways. They, 0.62

00:14:23.120 they intimidate, uh, school children going into synagogues. And I mean, we, we see very aggressive

00:14:30.800 protests on the streets in Canada all the time, but usually that is happening for the pet issues

00:14:36.240 of the far left. And they seem to be able to sort of get away with it. And yet here we had like

00:14:41.600 a once in a blue moon, um, working class people, uh, not even politically active people. Like, I don't know 1.00

00:14:48.800 if these people identify themselves as conservatives or not, but people just tired of government

00:14:53.360 overreach when it came to COVID, which I think we all universally agree at this point that everybody

00:14:58.960 overreacted a lot during COVID and the law of the rules and restrictions were nonsensical and counter

00:15:04.480 to free society. I mean, your own, um, organization helped prove that the emergencies act was government

00:15:10.000 overreach. And so we're all kind of in agreement of that now. And yet this case is dragging on. I think

00:15:14.480 it's just so many Canadians. We just see it as a total, uh, misuse of justice, uh, the wrong 1.00

00:15:21.040 priorities. And it's kind of making mockery. We're saying that some people can get away with this kind

00:15:25.840 of stuff if you have the right politics. Um, whereas other people, if you have the wrong politics,

00:15:29.360 you're going to go to jail. Well, that's the biggest problem in Canada. It's the unequal

00:15:34.160 application of the law. Uh, the most glaring example that comes to my mind was in July of 2021,

00:15:40.800 when some Aboriginal protesters, uh, protesting against residential schools, they tore down,

00:15:48.720 uh, and vandalized a statue of Queen Victoria, uh, that was on the grounds of the legislature.

00:15:55.040 And in broad daylight, they tore down this statue. It's a good thing. It would have killed anybody

00:16:00.320 that it landed on because it's made out of, it was very heavy and, and they, they, they, they tore it

00:16:05.760 down from a piece of marble that it was standing on. So nobody got hurt, but the, the police stood by

00:16:12.800 and watched police were present and it is a crime to destroy other people's property. You can legally

00:16:19.840 destroy your own property if you want to, but you cannot destroy somebody else's property or public

00:16:24.160 property. And a few months later, the crown prosecutors in Manitoba announced that nobody would

00:16:30.160 be prosecuted, no charges laid for obviously criminal conduct. Uh, we saw the same very soft approach to

00:16:39.440 people in March of 2020. Um, a little bit before lockdowns were imposed, we had these people blockading

00:16:47.360 railways and in the name of, um, Aboriginal rights in the name of the environment. And, uh,

00:16:54.000 uh, prime minister Trudeau said he wanted to sit down and meet with them. Right. So it's, it's,

00:16:59.120 it's all about the cause. And I think if the truckers, if the people in Ottawa, if they had been

00:17:05.840 waving rainbow flags or Hamas flags, uh, instead of the rude anti-Trudeau flags, um, like the whole

00:17:14.960 thing would have been, would have been different if, if it hadn't been against the vaccine mandates,

00:17:18.880 I don't think that the federal cabinet would have met and decided prior to anybody setting foot

00:17:23.840 in Ottawa without even knowing too much about what it was all about. This came out in the public

00:17:28.640 order emergencies commission, the federal cabinet determined that they were going to, uh, paint the

00:17:35.120 freedom convoy protesters as one or more of racist white supremacist, neo-Nazi criminal, dangerous,

00:17:43.920 violent. That was the narrative. And then it spun around in a vicious circle with the government

00:17:48.800 funded media. So the politician would say that, that these, uh, uh, the truckers were really

00:17:55.200 dangerous and they were arsonists. And then the media would report on that. And then the politicians

00:18:00.000 would comment on the media reports. So this just went back and forth in their own little bubble,

00:18:04.400 projecting this image, uh, which unfortunately, you know, for the Ottawa residents who were listening

00:18:09.680 to government funded media, some of them were scared. They weren't scared, uh, based on reality of,

00:18:15.760 of the protesters actually being violent or dangerous, but they were scared by the media

00:18:22.160 coverage that completely misrepresented these Canadians. Well, it's so interesting that you

00:18:26.720 say that because we were watching very closely. We had several reporters on the ground during the

00:18:31.360 protests. And from what I saw, it was like, it was just so heartwarming. It was like a beautiful

00:18:36.400 scene of like, you know, families, people bringing sandwiches, homemade signs, like the bouncy castles.

00:18:42.320 I saw images of the men like cleaning the streets, sweeping the sidewalks, uh, scraping them so that 0.64

00:18:48.640 people wouldn't slip and fall. It was a huge outpouring of just community love and support.

00:18:53.760 And it was so strange to then like, you know, stumble upon left-wing Twitter or turn on the CBC.

00:18:59.360 And it's like the thing that they were reporting on was so different than what we were seeing with

00:19:03.360 our own eyes. It was like seeing the power of propaganda and your point that the cabinet,

00:19:08.080 that this was all coordinated, this was all planned. I mean, I remember from the very beginning,

00:19:11.680 John, um, when the first trucker convoy left British Columbia and the CBC had a report about

00:19:17.200 how they were protesting against dangerous road conditions, like literally, and they found a

00:19:20.880 couple of East Indian people they interviewed that, that actually, I guess, were protesting against

00:19:25.440 dangerous road conditions, but they, they, they, they totally distorted the thing from the very

00:19:30.560 beginning. And watching that unfold, it was like seeing a lesson in propaganda and how Canadians can so

00:19:37.280 easily fall for propaganda. I, I think the Canadians are some of the most propagandized people

00:19:42.080 in the world, but I want to tie this to, uh, the current political discussion because Pierre

00:19:46.880 Polyev, leader of the Conservative Party, he voiced support for the truckers back in 2022. He took a lot

00:19:52.480 of flack for it and he is still voicing his support courageously against, uh, the, the, the

00:19:58.640 mischaracterizations and the media pushback. So this is what he wrote on X on Monday evening. He says,

00:20:04.320 let's get this straight. While rampant violent offenders are released hours after their most

00:20:09.200 recent charges and antisemitic writers vandalize businesses, terrorize daycares and block traffic

00:20:14.480 without consequence. The crown wants seven years prison time for the charges of mischief for

00:20:19.360 leech and barber. How is this justice? So I'm curious, John, uh, to, to, to get your, your take,

00:20:26.640 and then we'll get to some of the media criticism of Polyev. Uh, but, but what do you think about the way

00:20:30.400 that Polyev has commented on this so far? Well, everybody is, is entitled to comment on judicial

00:20:38.320 proceedings and that includes lawyers, non-lawyers. This is par for the course. This is a healthy part

00:20:44.240 of the judicial system is, is that the public does comment on what's going on. It would be really

00:20:51.280 interesting to see what jail sentences, uh, if even jail time that the crown was seeking in cases of other

00:20:58.320 people blocking roads because to block a highway, uh, and, and highway, uh, in, in the legislation

00:21:05.440 includes city streets, right? It's not just a highway between two cities, but to, to, to block a highway

00:21:11.680 is criminal conduct and you can be criminally charged for doing so. And it would be interesting to

00:21:17.600 see other cases where highways were blocked as has, has happened certainly many times in, in Ontario and,

00:21:24.480 and, and, and in other provinces as well. You know, where, where was the crown seeking seven or eight

00:21:29.840 years for that? And I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but that would be, uh, something

00:21:36.960 not that hard to find out actually, uh, to, to look up the, the case law on, on other cases of, um,

00:21:44.160 obstructing a highway. That kind of thing. I mean, it happens all the time. And so, but Pierre's decision

00:21:48.800 to, to, to jump in and continue to the fort, to support the truckers. He's obviously taking a

00:21:53.280 political risk and I want to read through some of the media reactions. So we had the CBC writing a

00:21:57.360 piece, poly of conservative MPs criticized crown ahead of freedom convoy's leader sentences. The CBC

00:22:03.360 interviewed Michael Spratt, an Ottawa based defense lawyer who called the MPs decision to weigh on the

00:22:09.280 pro sentences, craven politics. It's very dangerous for politicians to be weighing in on matters before

00:22:13.920 the court, he said, and then basically just accused conservatives of trying to advance their political

00:22:19.760 narrative. Uh, likewise, Tom Broadback in the Winnipeg free press, a columnist writes Pierre

00:22:25.600 Polyevs led Tories gearing up for more ballot box failure with support for convicted mischief ring 1.00

00:22:33.280 leaders. And so it's really interesting to see the way that these newspapers, these media companies

00:22:38.560 continue to paint the trucker convoy as again, this sort of like racist uprising, right? And that

00:22:44.960 anyone who touches it is political poison. Andrew Coyne of the Globe and Mail and CBC, uh, writes this,

00:22:50.880 he says, incredible. They have learned nothing. Um, again, criticizing, uh, Pierre Polyev for daring to

00:22:59.040 voice support for the freedom convoy leaders. Next, we have national observer columnist, Max Fawcett on X.

00:23:05.840 He said, this is the kind of thing you say when you're nervous about losing an internal conservative

00:23:10.160 leadership vote. So they think that it's all just about, uh, drumming up support from the base and,

00:23:16.720 and pandering, uh, Rachel Gilmore, who is a TikTok journalist wrote, Pierre Polyev comes out swinging

00:23:23.040 dot to dot for the organizers of the freedom convoy. Good to know all the talk of a pivot was actually a

00:23:28.480 pivot even further rightwards from his camp. And then finally you have Paul Wells, who is a very

00:23:34.400 respected journalist. He runs a sub stack and he just says noted, noted as in we're watching you,

00:23:40.080 Pierre, the Laurentian elite and the media is noting that you are choosing to go on the other

00:23:47.040 side. So Paul Wells is basically hinting that, you know, there's good guys and bad guys and we in the

00:23:52.000 lunchroom meet, we're the good guys. And this is how we see the country. And Pierre continues to

00:23:55.840 defiantly see the country the other way. And so I thought that was like, sort of like just the

00:24:00.400 perfect thing. Like the Laurentian elite are watching Pierre and they're not happy with the fact that

00:24:05.040 he is voicing concern. Um, what do you make of all this, John? Well, part of the reason why it's okay for

00:24:13.520 people to comment, uh, state their opinions about judicial, uh, proceedings and, and they're public for

00:24:20.880 a reason is that you have that, that transparency, right? In a, in a healthy democracy in, uh, the free and

00:24:27.600 democratic society that Canada is supposed to be, you don't have a secret trials because then

00:24:34.640 secrecy opens things up for abuse, right? So we have the, the open courts principle. Um, but part

00:24:42.960 of the reason why it's okay for, for all citizens, including elected politicians, including lawyers

00:24:48.480 to comment on court cases is because we expect judges to ignore public commentary. They might hear

00:24:54.640 about it. They might even deliberately seek it out, although it's probably not a good move, but they

00:25:00.160 might hear about it, but they're, they're looking at the evidence presented in court. And this is another

00:25:04.080 very dark aspect of the lockdowns era was, um, as we talked about this previously in regards to my book,

00:25:12.960 corrupted by fear. We have judgments where, uh, judges wrote the media narrative into their court rulings

00:25:22.160 um, I, I think prior to 2020, Canadian judges would always ignore. Um, I think that judges, whether it's a

00:25:43.600 murder trial or family law dispute or a constitutional challenge, um, I think prior to 2020 Canadian judges

00:25:50.800 would always ignore what the media was saying and focus only on the evidence before the court.

00:25:55.920 But we've, we've got so many examples of judges, uh, that are simply writing the media narrative

00:26:02.480 into their court ruling on these lockdown challenges. I'm not saying it's a universal problem.

00:26:07.360 Uh, but, but on the constitutional challenges to lockdowns as being unjustified violations of our

00:26:13.440 charter freedoms of conscience, religion, association, expression, et cetera. Uh, we we've got too many

00:26:19.520 examples of, of judges that are not limiting, uh, themselves to what is placed, uh, before them in

00:26:26.240 court. I had a question for you, John, about the sort of jurisdiction, because I know that these are

00:26:32.080 federal charges and everyone thinks of this as sort of a liberal government, uh, Justin Trudeau continued

00:26:37.120 into Mark Carney. And yet it's interesting to learn, and Brian Lilly had a column sort of, uh, alluding to

00:26:42.720 this. Um, but it's actually the Ford government and the government of Ontario that is overseeing and

00:26:48.880 possibly pulling the strings in this case. So I'm wondering if you could just help us understand the

00:26:52.640 jurisdiction breakdown and how Doug Ford could actually have maybe possibly stopped this or at

00:26:57.920 least lessened to some of this. Well, it's the provinces who were in charge of administration of

00:27:03.840 justice. And so in Ontario, the crown prosecutors, even though they're prosecuting the criminal code

00:27:11.200 offenses and the criminal code is federal legislation. Uh, but the prosecutors in Ontario and

00:27:17.360 every other province, they, they prosecute all offenses. I mean, you've got municipal bylaw

00:27:22.000 infractions, you know, if you're, if your dog's barking all night, keeping the neighbors

00:27:25.600 awake and you get a ticket for that, it'll be prosecuted by it. It's the province that pays for

00:27:30.160 the prosecution service, uh, traffic courts, speeding tickets, as well as criminal code offenses.

00:27:36.400 And so the prosecutors are supposed to be working at arms length from government. Uh, I, I, I hope that

00:27:46.720 they are, I, I assume that they are. So you don't have the premier or the justice minister. Uh, we saw

00:27:52.640 this in the SNC Lavalin case with the Trudeau government, right? It's not appropriate for the, uh, the

00:27:58.480 prime minister or, uh, any other cabinet minister to be directing prosecutions and saying, well, you know,

00:28:06.240 go hard on this guy, go easy on that guy. Oh, my cousin got charged with impaired driving. You know,

00:28:11.280 can you just turn a blind eye and let him get off? Cause he's a good guy. Like you don't want the

00:28:15.600 politicians directing the prosecutors. So this, uh, I guess, I would say fanatical attitude towards

00:28:24.720 using up huge resources, uh, to prosecute Tamera Leach and Chris Barber, when the same crown

00:28:30.560 prosecutors complain publicly, they don't have enough resources to bring, uh, murder charges and,

00:28:37.040 and aggravated assault and sexual assault, get some people walking away scot-free without a trial.

00:28:43.040 Crown prosecutors say they don't have enough resources. So I would hope that it's still a bad

00:28:49.520 thing. If the crown itself is so obsessed with, uh, with the freedom convoy, that would be a bad thing.

00:28:58.480 It would be even worse if it was directed, uh, and guided by the Ford government. I would like to

00:29:04.320 believe that it is not. And I certainly don't have any evidence to, to suggest that, that the crown

00:29:10.000 is being directed by premier Ford. Well, I know we've gone over this a little bit, but there is

00:29:14.320 obviously a double standard in our justice system. When you just look at even just some of the recent

00:29:18.800 news, John, so we had Sam Cooper over the bureau reporting that charges have been dropped against a

00:29:23.520 Chinese scientist in Vancouver tied to Xi's talents program and Canada's synthetic drug pipeline. Uh, 0.67

00:29:29.920 no worries, no charges there. A man in Edmonton with a history of attacking people was, uh, given

00:29:35.840 seven years for random killing on an LRT. So he murdered someone he's getting seven years, which is

00:29:41.040 what Tamara and Chris might possibly get. Uh, next we had Juno news reporting that a judge has spared an

00:29:47.920 Indian immigrant jail after trying to buy sex from a child, from a minor, um, because the judge didn't 0.88

00:29:54.480 want that poor Indian immigrant to possibly have to get deported. So, uh, they, they didn't give him, 0.99

00:30:00.880 uh, jail time, right? A Quebec woman pleads guilty to joining ISIS. And they were just sentenced to one

00:30:08.000 day in custody because you know, uh, she, she, she was obviously remorseful or whatever. Uh, we had an ex 0.92

00:30:15.440 bell tech get near house arrest after exposing himself to customers. So, I mean, this is just

00:30:21.920 like, I could, I could pull out a thousand examples for you, John of judges just going really easy on

00:30:28.160 some people and then others, uh, uh, people like the freedom convoy organizers going really hard.

00:30:34.400 I don't expect you to make a prediction, but you watch these kinds of stories carefully and closely.

00:30:39.680 I wonder, uh, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think that they will actually get jail

00:30:43.760 time? And if so, uh, what, what do you expect the reaction to be from the Canadian public?

00:30:49.520 Well, I won't make any predictions. I mean, your guess is as good as mine, you know, with some of

00:30:54.480 the court cases over the years that I've been, uh, involved with, uh, or, you know, or lawyer acting

00:31:01.040 for clients in court. I, I have won cases that I should have lost and I have lost cases that I should

00:31:05.840 have won. And it's always, it's always a surprise. Um, you know, even the guilty verdict, I mean, uh,

00:31:13.280 would not have surprised me if there had been an acquittal. So without making predictions,

00:31:18.560 I will say if there's any jail time at all for, uh, Chris Barber or Tamara Leach or both,

00:31:25.360 then, uh, that's going to bring the administration of justice into further disrepute in the minds of

00:31:32.160 millions of Canadians. It's going to be seen as this, uh, double standard where other protesters,

00:31:39.840 if they're protesting for the right cause, cause that, that the, uh, politicians like, uh, or that,

00:31:46.480 that the establishment likes, um, that double standard is, is just a glaring problem in, uh,

00:31:53.440 in Canada. So, but we'll have to wait and see what comes out. I, I really, yeah, no predictions.

00:31:59.520 Well, we will be following it very closely for you folks and we will give you an update

00:32:02.960 when that comes down. I want to change gears a little bit with you here, John,

00:32:06.080 because I know you're representing a family and it's just absolutely extraordinary case.

00:32:10.560 So Ontario teachers were just fired over their personal values. The Alexander family

00:32:15.680 were punished for standing by their beliefs. So we have Matt and Nicole Alexander of Cobden, Ontario,

00:32:23.920 have dedicated over two decades of their lives to supporting students in their community as educators

00:32:28.560 in the Renfrew County District School Board. They were basically fired or pushed out for just very

00:32:35.120 innocuous, um, not adhering to extreme, woke ideology. John, can you tell us a little bit about their

00:32:43.360 case and why you're representing them? So Matt Alexander has been teacher for 20 years,

00:32:50.480 record, uh, his wife, Nicole, uh, was teaching kindergarten. She had been teaching for three years

00:32:56.400 after taking time away from her teaching career to raise her family at home. They both had great

00:33:04.240 performance reviews and there, nobody has alleged neither the school board nor any member of the

00:33:12.560 public, nor any parent, nor any student, nobody has alleged that Matt or Nicole Alexander, uh, has ever

00:33:19.680 mistreated a student, treated a student unkindly or unfairly, or has been, you know,

00:33:25.680 discriminatory in, in their attitudes. Um, what happened one morning was that, uh, Nicole came to 0.99

00:33:33.440 work and she found a, uh, uh, a pride, a rainbow pride poster, uh, that somebody without her knowledge

00:33:40.960 or consent had, uh, affixed to her door. And she noticed other doors, uh, nearby did not have a pride

00:33:49.120 poster and this was not some school policy or directive or edict. So she took down the pride poster,

00:33:55.360 put it in a cupboard and proceeded to go to work. And not long thereafter, she's called into the

00:33:59.920 principal's office and the superintendent of the school district is there. Uh, and, uh, she is

00:34:06.960 immediately suspended and she's later fired. Uh, her husband, Matt Alexander, who was teaching grades

00:34:13.920 seven and eight was, uh, phoned by the principal one day and told that he was suspended and under

00:34:19.680 investigation, uh, because of complaints about his social media posts, he did not have a social media

00:34:25.600 account at the time when he received this phone call. So what it ultimately came down to, they were

00:34:30.880 fired because they were asked to, uh, celebrate and affirm LGBTQ issues. And so you've got these very 0.65

00:34:39.680 woke, uh, radical policies that are in place in, in, uh, just about every public school board in Canada,

00:34:46.960 as far as I know. And so these teachers, they're not, they're not mistreating anybody. They're not

00:34:53.600 doing anything wrong. Philosophically, uh, they don't want to say that they want to celebrate and

00:35:01.280 affirm, you know, they don't want to wave the rainbow flag and they don't want to push that LGBTQ, uh, 0.99

00:35:07.920 narrative that is being pushed by so many government agencies and school boards. On that basis, they were

00:35:16.000 fired, not for any actual misconduct, but basically they, they said, look, we're not enthusiastic about

00:35:22.560 pushing and promoting, celebrating, affirming this LGBTQ narrative. Uh, on that basis, they lost their 0.94

00:35:28.240 jobs and the, their, their union, the elementary teachers Federation of Ontario essentially in a nutshell

00:35:34.800 did nothing to help them or, or to defend them.

00:35:38.320 It's unbelievable. I mean, I'm sorry, but she's a kindergarten teacher that didn't want a gay pride 0.99

00:35:43.760 poster on her door and nobody told her that she had to have it up. So she quietly removed it. Like

00:35:48.960 in, in, in what world is that a firing offense? How, how, how, like, what about her freedom of 0.97

00:35:53.600 conscience? And also their children, their four and five-year-old children, why do they have to be

00:35:58.160 propagandized into an ideology, like any ideology? I mean, this is, this is just so outrageous, John.

00:36:04.880 Um, so what, uh, what's, what's next, uh, for this family?

00:36:09.280 So the, and the union did not raise, uh, there's very strong arguments. There's strong legal arguments

00:36:14.720 on their side. They, they have their, uh, freedom of conscience and religion, their freedom of

00:36:19.600 expression. Freedom of expression includes being free from compelled speech where somebody is forcing

00:36:24.800 you or pressuring you to say something that you disagree with. Uh, the school boards are government

00:36:30.000 entities. So the charter does apply to the school boards. And so the union didn't raise the

00:36:36.480 freedoms of religion and conscience, uh, arguments also under Ontario's human rights legislation.

00:36:43.040 Um, the employer has a legal obligation for reasonable accommodation. Uh, so for example,

00:36:50.880 somebody belongs to a religion where they can't work on a Saturday, the employer has to accommodate

00:36:55.760 that employee and not require them to work on a Saturday, right? As an example. So the union

00:37:01.440 didn't raise these arguments and claimed that the case was weak. They didn't push it forward to

00:37:07.120 arbitration. Uh, when asked why the union felt that they thought that the case was, was weak and doomed

00:37:13.920 to failure and not worth pursuing to arbitration, the union provided no explanation other than saying,

00:37:20.320 uh, well, we've given it a careful review. So what's happening now are two things,

00:37:24.960 uh, human rights complaints have been filed on behalf of the Alexanders against the school board

00:37:29.600 for, uh, discrimination, uh, against their, uh, religion and, and creed and further, uh, legal

00:37:37.200 proceedings have been commenced before the Ontario labor relations board to, or labor relations tribunal,

00:37:44.560 I forget which to, to, um, take the union to task for its failure to provide effective representation.

00:37:52.160 Well, I'm very happy and pleased to hear that you are fighting on behalf of this family. It

00:37:58.560 is so outrageous the way that people are treated in fields across the country. We had Amy Eileen 0.92

00:38:03.120 Han on yesterday who was fired as a nurse because she didn't want to promote the cityology. It's

00:38:08.640 happening to teachers in Ontario, nurses in British Columbia, it's happening all over the country.

00:38:12.160 And John, we thank you for standing up for these types of people and, uh, giving them a fighting

00:38:18.160 chance. Uh, that's John Carpe of the justice center for constitutional freedoms. Thank you so much,

00:38:22.720 John, for joining us. Thank you. All right, folks. It's all the time we have for today.

00:38:26.720 Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm show. Thank you. And God

00:38:29.680 bless you.

00:38:38.240 You

00:38:40.240 You

00:38:42.240 You

Juno News - July 24, 2025

TWO-TIERED Justice： Constitutional Lawyer weighs in on the fate of Freedom Convoy organizers

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