Western Standard - WATCH： Calgary lawyer discusses implications of Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich's legal battles

00:00:00.000 Hello Standard and joining me right now is Derek Frum. He is a lawyer with Warnock Craft Anderson

00:00:06.960 law firm out of Airdrie and Derek we wanted to speak a little bit today about some of the

00:00:13.440 some of the things that have been happening to Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Leach and

00:00:19.500 and some of the ramifications that have come down so so thanks for joining me and why don't we

00:00:27.160 why don't we start with how this you know everything that's unfolded for her what she

00:00:31.500 was arrested for um yeah why don't you give us a little bit of a background on that okay so 0.68

00:00:37.680 as I remember it right now uh Tamara is one of the organizers of the Freedom Convoy and 0.97

00:00:43.700 one of her biggest problems legally speaking is that she was very successful she successfully

00:00:51.580 organized a very uh engaging and it captured the minds and hearts of canadians all across the

00:00:58.620 country uh protest and it was political speech very clearly political speech and it became

00:01:05.180 attacked from all angles and uh you know most most the claims i think have already been proven

00:01:11.820 false like oh well someone associated with the convoy was carrying a swastika well that's been

00:01:18.460 proven false oh there was a fire so arson that was proven false there was firearms associated you know

00:01:24.380 with the the protesters well that's actually been proven false also and so this is this has gone on

00:01:31.180 and sometime early february uh tamara was arrested and charges were brought against her for mischief

00:01:40.860 now mischief is not a very serious offense um and she had a bail hearing and you know after being

00:01:47.580 in prison for a significant period of time she was released and then sometime

00:01:55.900 just before july at the end of june tamara was picked up again from her home in medicine hat

00:02:02.620 alberta and this time it was for breaching bail conditions so she was released with certain

00:02:09.900 conditions in place and she was alleged to have breached those conditions and it seems to stem

00:02:17.900 from a photograph that was taken of her where she posed with another fellow

00:02:25.420 protester and so the allegation is that she somehow breached her bail conditions

00:02:32.700 even though her lawyers had actually sought special guidance from the court whether or not

00:02:41.020 this could happen because she attended a gala event and that gala event was attended by this

00:02:46.780 other fellow and they both happen to be in the same place at the same time and now tamara finds 0.99

00:02:52.380 herself in ottawa once again incarcerated and i understood that uh with with that bail condition

00:03:00.940 of of not being around um any other fellow organizers that was without their lawyers

00:03:07.900 present but my understanding was that all the lawyers were present that that is correct

00:03:13.900 that's what the conditions were and again it's um these these sorts of orders the way i look at it

00:03:23.420 is that what they're meant to do is they're meant to stop the offender from offending again

00:03:29.660 she posed for a picture in a public place at a gala event with somebody who happened to be

00:03:35.100 associated with the same cause as she was now again this is all and so she remains remains uh

00:03:42.620 incarcerated right now a justice of the peace so not a lawyer a justice of the peace who i'm told

00:03:48.540 is a former parks canada employee has uh decided that she's such a threat to the community that

00:03:56.300 she should not be released and so let's just put this in a little bit of context so during the

00:04:02.780 freedom convoy i you may recall that there is somebody in winnipeg who took a vehicle and

00:04:08.860 drove it through a crowd and he was i guess you could say an anti-protester right it was

00:04:14.300 there was five individuals who are harmed by being driven into now this is my opinion quite

00:04:21.980 obviously attempted murder he attempted to murder at least five individuals and uh he was released

00:04:29.180 on bail tamara lynch what's her crime mischief and what was she doing well she was actively engaged

00:04:39.260 in political speech and political speech of which this protest the truckers protest was

00:04:46.780 is nearly sacrosanct in canada it's the courts have upheld this and uh and withstood the

00:04:55.180 government's forays into restricting political speech many times including times when when

00:05:01.180 people felt threatened and felt scared and of course this is often fabricated this was this

00:05:07.900 is what people who don't like hearing what you have to say come up with because instead of just

00:05:13.420 saying i don't like to hear your speech because it makes me feel bad they come up with excuses

00:05:20.860 like i felt threatened or his violence so there's many examples of political speech being upheld

00:05:28.220 as justified in this country in fact our democratic institutions the courts have often found

00:05:35.500 our democratic institutions and our freedom as an as a nation are built upon the fact that we

00:05:42.940 have this institution of political free speech so tamara's real problem here is that she was 0.97

00:05:49.900 very successful she organized a very successful and frankly embarrassing protest it embarrassed

00:05:58.780 the government and it's difficult to see this in a different through a different lens

00:06:05.180 if tamara had you know was only got two or three trucks to drive to ottawa 0.56

00:06:11.180 and they parked in the streets she wouldn't be she wouldn't be suffering as she is today

00:06:15.820 but she was very successful she organized and same thing happens she was very successful and

00:06:23.320 embarrassed the powers that be in Ottawa and now she finds herself quite frankly as a political

00:06:29.120 prisoner in this country right so what are the what are the implications of this moving forward

00:06:35.700 Derek well it is concerning because it suddenly has lowered the bar enormously for what speech

00:06:44.200 might be illegal in this country and it doesn't matter it seems to me that it's really calling

00:06:50.680 into question many of the cases that i know on these sorts of issues like if you want to go

00:06:56.200 looking the bracken cases out of the ontario court of appeal those cases are are clear political

00:07:03.160 speech is extremely important and it's the lifeblood of our democracy in our nation it's

00:07:09.960 it's what imbues our freedom with any sort of meaning is the ability to speak and again it's

00:07:17.480 this was a political speech she was engaged in political speech there's no uh there's no laws

00:07:23.640 that were broken here that we know of yet and that's an important point so in this country

00:07:30.040 this is the way our legal system works and our constitutional order works

00:07:34.360 everything is permissible until otherwise proven that it's not and so the reason murder in this

00:07:42.680 country is illegal is because there's a law prohibiting it right now it's the same thing

00:07:48.680 with trespassing entering someone else's land is illegal because there's a law prohibiting trespass

00:07:55.400 but where there's no law where the law is silent you are free to act and so tamara she

00:08:03.160 you know there was times when her opposition there in ottawa during the protest they tried

00:08:08.600 to get an injunction to stop the honking from happening and that judge who heard that injunction

00:08:14.040 was very clear this is not illegal protest there's no court that has found this protest illegal

00:08:20.920 so when we hear things in the media like it was the occupation of ottawa

00:08:25.160 and it's just pure bias there's no basis it's bias and so when I when I heard of the JP who

00:08:35.520 made this decision recently to keep Tamara in prison was using terminology like that

00:08:40.280 he's completely biased right he he made his decision prior to hearing from her 0.94

00:08:47.180 and that's that's a big problem and that leads me strongly to believe that Tamara is a political

00:08:54.240 prisoner and that this JP had an ax to grind for whatever reason, let your imagination run. I don't

00:09:00.520 know what that reason is, but Tamara is behind bars today because she embarrassed the government. 0.75

00:09:08.920 But is it an ax to grind then, or is it more instruction from the government to this JP? I

00:09:14.720 mean, I imagine you can't speculate on that, but... Well, we can speculate. I don't think we have

00:09:21.400 enough evidence to really draw any inferences but that's one possible explanation based upon what we

00:09:29.240 see that is a possible explanation is that the best one is that the only one i'm not sure of that

00:09:35.080 i'm not sure of that but i i think it's it's um for those of us who are in western canada for us

00:09:42.280 it was much clearer what's going on and i would dare say that we have a much clearer view of the

00:09:48.200 legality of it than many people do who are close to it and so it just could be that this jp is

00:09:55.240 caught up in the cultural foment that's going on in ottawa right now and it's just he's systemically

00:10:04.120 biased or inherently biased and it's not even an intentional uh a decision where he intended to

00:10:11.400 keep her behind bars for illegitimate reasons he just could be as much a victim of the narrative

00:10:17.720 as as many people are and so um sort of using uh tamara leach as a sort of um the poster woman for

00:10:31.160 you know what not to do don't don't question don't second guess your government um you know 0.93

00:10:37.560 do you think that that's sort of part of the part of the plan as well uh just to try and make sure

00:10:44.760 that um you know anyone who's considering in the future uh some form of a protest will think twice

00:10:51.320 now that's exactly exactly right there's a real chilling effect to all of this and uh that that

00:10:59.320 can't be overlooked even discouraging people from exercising their legitimate constitutional rights

00:11:06.680 is very problematic when that when the government sets out to tell you that it's going to cost you

00:11:12.680 and cost you dearly to exercise what is your right to do they're putting a cost on that sort of

00:11:19.720 behavior and basically they're telling you you know what it might not be outward or overtly illegal

00:11:26.680 but it's going to be so costly for you that you probably should think twice and not do it

00:11:31.480 right that alone that chilling effect is enormous and it's devastating and quite frankly it what

00:11:38.280 What that does is it just changes a little bit.

00:11:41.240 It changes the narrative and changes what happens in the courts a little bit because it's almost like a ratchet.

00:11:48.020 The government pushes a little bit.

00:11:49.420 We become used to a new normal, and then they push a little bit further until we get used to that new normal.

00:11:55.600 That happens incrementally over time.

00:11:58.260 And then after a number of years, we'll look back on this moment and we'll say, this is how we got here.

00:12:04.560 One incremental step at a time.

00:12:06.540 And it's like the old metaphor about boiling a frog slowly from cold water.

00:12:13.560 And we're at that point now.

00:12:16.580 We're seeing that incremental growth.

00:12:18.240 And it's going to start happening to journalists too.

00:12:22.620 Like if this is happening to a protester, this is pure political speech.

00:12:26.980 Political speech is nearly sacrosanct, as I said, in this country.

00:12:30.400 When you go out and you protest against a policy, that's the sort of speech.

00:12:35.500 and non-violently against a policy that you disagree with that's the sort of speech that

00:12:40.480 the government doesn't have any business controlling unless you're breaking a law

00:12:44.860 now I dare say that journalists are a little bit lower on that food chain journalism is going to

00:12:52.720 be under attack as well and I think we see that that the seeds of that coming in in the federal

00:12:58.340 legislation the censorship bill that's coming forward now like this is this is problematic

00:13:03.360 This is part of a larger agenda, I dare say, and it doesn't bode well for the future of a free media or protests or, frankly, citizens having opinions on what their government does to them.

00:13:17.360 So, you know, with you and many other civil liberties lawyers across the country fighting all sorts of, you know, constitutional challenges to the mandates with travel and whatnot, what, you know, how do you stop this slippery slope?

00:13:39.420 what you know like I mean I'm sure there are a lot of people watching saying well what can we do

00:13:44.780 to make sure this doesn't uh go down that way that's a very good question yeah it's a it's

00:13:52.640 tough one I'm sure yeah that and you know that's that's where we start to speculate I have to take

00:13:57.280 my lawyer's hat off and uh talk more as just a Canadian citizen like how how do we how do we

00:14:05.320 take control of our own country. Well, voting is one way, protesting is another way. But, you know,

00:14:11.520 here in the West, I think we have other options available to us where we need to start seriously

00:14:17.580 saber rattling because we are the ones who are funding the rest of the country. We hold the

00:14:23.320 purse strings and we need to be a little more serious about what we're sending away in terms

00:14:29.980 money and find a way to to make canada listen because you know it's it's no surprise to me

00:14:38.460 that um tamara lynch is from alberta it's no surprise to me it's no surprise to me that uh

00:14:46.300 another uh independent journalist andy lee has been looks like harassed in the last few days

00:14:52.540 she also happens to be from alberta and you know this all happened to tamara just prior to canada

00:14:58.540 day as well like it's starting to seem like the the walls are closing in a little bit on alberta

00:15:08.380 and uh western sentiment and our independent thought that we have here because quite frankly

00:15:14.620 this this sort of thought doesn't exist as widely and broadly elsewhere in canada certainly not

00:15:20.780 ontario or quebec or the maritimes it's it's us outlandish um provincials out in the west that

00:15:28.860 only think this way and so i think the west needs to get a little bit more serious about insulating 0.96

00:15:34.060 itself from the from the terrible effects that ottawa has on canadian society and culture 0.86

00:15:41.500 yeah i imagine and and as you mentioned it it really does come down to a vote uh you know there

00:15:48.620 are options coming up uh within alberta and uh you know of course i i think the the most important

00:15:57.500 thing for people to do is really invest in knowing and invest in understanding what um what's at stake

00:16:04.620 yeah that's that is correct and uh i i think you know as much as our votes in the west don't

00:16:12.540 matter federally i think it's it's probably a good idea that we all try to flex our political muscles

00:16:19.500 as it were to have ottawa take us seriously and i'm not a political organizer i'm not very

00:16:26.860 politically astute i'll admit that but it seems to me that the option the ways to solve this

00:16:35.100 are political because the courts will generally backstop the government as as we've seen in this

00:16:44.060 ordeal and in matters like this that tamara is facing right now uh the ultimate remedy could be

00:16:51.580 coming months from now i mean she's going to face trial at some point and there'll be appeals and

00:16:58.700 the government does not like to lose and when they do they will always appeal and their their whole

00:17:07.420 endeavor and matters like this is anyone who sticks their head up they want to grind them

00:17:12.780 into the dust i saw that with my clients before when i practiced constitutional law

00:17:18.140 anyone who opposed the government even if they were being wrongfully attacked by some government

00:17:23.660 law or regulation the government just it does not lose it does not care about you as an individual

00:17:31.580 and its whole endeavor in taking legal action against canadians in those contexts

00:17:36.620 is to make an example out of you so that other people don't follow you as an example

00:17:41.580 and that's why i say it's quite clear to me tamara is a political prisoner and that the 0.91

00:17:47.020 government will spare no expense to grind her into the dust to prevent future tamaras from coming

00:17:52.780 along well and speaking of the um you know the purse strings that that does pose a significant

00:18:00.300 hurdle for many people because uh you know i was just reading um i was just reading a ruling where

00:18:07.500 they were going to put off a uh they were going to put off a portion of a trial uh with regard to

00:18:15.340 some mandates and uh and because of that the government uh said that they would award um

00:18:21.020 sort of damages for or they would be covering some of the some of the claimants legal fees

00:18:29.180 in in exchange for this sort of delay that they were requesting and it's situations like that

00:18:36.060 where it's sort of this unending access to funds to be able to you know sort of i think control

00:18:46.380 what it feels like to control the entire process yeah so i i from my experience i i represented

00:18:54.460 someone in ontario eight years ago who had a long battle with the government of ontario regarding a

00:19:03.020 basically a food safety matter and my client was not accused of anything other than you know

00:19:13.180 a regulatory offense that it caused no one any harm and he was in some ways intentionally

00:19:20.060 violating the law so that he could have his day in court but what happened during that process

00:19:26.940 which we found interesting was that we tried to find out just how much is the government of ontario

00:19:34.060 spending to put this prosecution forward like it's over such a minor matter and again it's that

00:19:41.500 they're taking a completely out of proportion attack on our client like what's going on here

00:19:48.060 so when we made the freedom of information request um we were told well actually there's no documents

00:19:55.100 associated with your request to find out how much money is being spent because you know what we

00:19:59.340 don't dock at our time right we actually don't even keep track of how much time and so in our

00:20:04.620 mind we're thinking wow that could be like let your mind wander how much time they have and

00:20:10.460 something similar happened when uh i was involved with um the can be litigation when i was with the

00:20:16.780 canadian constitution foundation we made a request to find out a freedom of information request in bc

00:20:22.380 to find out how much the bc government was spending because we had heard rumors you know

00:20:27.740 they had spent uh you know 20 million 25 million something like that defending themselves against

00:20:34.620 our private litigants claims and charitable organizations claims we at that time had spent

00:20:39.660 something like seven million dollars which is an enormous amount of money for a charity to bear

00:20:44.940 and fundraise for and uh the government of bc the the privacy commissioner ordered the release of

00:20:51.820 how much they had spent and it was opposed the government immediately appealed it on the appeal

00:21:00.940 they were successful and one of the reasons being that if the number got out it would be

00:21:06.620 so embarrassing to the government that i could use that number and embarrass them so badly it

00:21:12.380 would outrage people well and maybe you can confirm this on uh with uh tamara lich or leach sorry uh

00:21:20.540 she my understanding is that she was brought to edmonton and then potentially flown to ottawa

00:21:28.620 in a private plane. I'm not sure either, but there were likely costs, and if it was a private plane,

00:21:43.740 significant costs associated with that. And again, to question whether she's a risk or poses a risk

00:21:52.220 to society right now, it's interesting. And I think the problem is many taxpayers don't

00:21:59.560 understand the implications to how much is being spent on these kinds of things.

00:22:05.920 Would you say that you think the judicial system is broken?

00:22:10.280 I'm not there yet. I think judges are often bound. I think that's a lot of what we see.

00:22:18.400 and in this last two years these have been extraordinary two years and many of the covid

00:22:23.840 related cases that are going to be coming forward in the next while may reveal the answer to your

00:22:28.320 question but i i have a lot of time for judges because judges have to base their decision on

00:22:35.760 legal reasoning and they have to follow precedent and it's hard to find precedent on these sort of

00:22:42.720 sorts of issues precedent that applies and we have legislation being slapped into place that

00:22:50.560 looks difficult we have governance by twitter and press release and the courts have a hard time

00:22:58.560 i am a little concerned with some of the some of the things i've heard from the chief justice of

00:23:04.560 supreme court of canada where he in a french media in a french media interview he said some

00:23:11.520 things that were very concerning to me that make him sound like he's biased that if i was to go if

00:23:17.680 tamara lynch were to appear in front of him on a matter like the one she's facing now it would be

00:23:24.880 difficult for her to get a fair hearing because the chief justice comments look like his mind

00:23:31.840 has been fully made up without having heard any of the evidence and having not heard any legal

00:23:36.720 arguments that's concerning to me but do i do i worry about the courts in alberta i don't i don't

00:23:44.640 think we have concern at this point they have to follow president precedent this is novel and new

00:23:51.280 courts don't always get things right the first time that's why we have appellate courts

00:23:56.000 and uh so i i have i cut judges a lot of slack on these things and i i like to think that eventually

00:24:02.640 will iron out these problems. That doesn't mean that it's not going to be a lot of work ironing

00:24:07.820 out the problems, though. And speaking of a lot of work, I think it's definitely going to be an

00:24:13.460 uphill battle with a lot of the legal proceedings that are in front of us in the province and across

00:24:20.440 the country and, you know, even in places around the world. So it's going to be kind of one of

00:24:25.800 those things where we are just keeping an eye on how things are turning out. And, you know,

00:24:32.220 my understanding is that a lot of this a lot of the decisions will sort of become a cascade effect

00:24:38.460 or a domino effect uh for for legislation and for rulings across the country so it's just a matter

00:24:46.860 of time now yeah i i believe that's the case and i think that um the great work particularly of the

00:24:53.420 justice center for constitutional freedoms they've been punching way above their weight

00:24:59.980 they've done wonderful work and what I see them doing is having gotten a whole lot more information

00:25:08.720 dragged out to the public that would have otherwise been hidden and once the public

00:25:13.560 sees behind the curtain and sees how decisions were made and sees what the decisions were

00:25:20.760 really and who made them the public's not going to be very happy with what is uncovered that's

00:25:27.860 that's what i believe is going to happen and that's going to start happening across the country

00:25:33.220 it's going to happen in bc eventually it'll happen in ontario and that to me is where i

00:25:40.500 think judges will do good work as good evidence is placed before them and they apply the law

00:25:47.060 the constitution as it has been because what i see has having happened in the last two years

00:25:52.580 has been a a vigorous attack on the rule of law by politicians and public health authorities

00:25:59.540 and quite frankly what it looks like justin trudeau's crowd as well in ottawa

00:26:05.220 well i think uh you as well as myself will have our eyes uh sort of glued to all of the uh all of

00:26:12.500 the things that start rolling downhill uh once these uh decisions start to come in so i'm sure

00:26:18.980 you and I will touch base again when we can review more of some of the things that are

00:26:25.540 still sort of in courts now. Thanks for joining me, Derek. Thank you very much.

Western Standard - July 12, 2022

WATCH： Calgary lawyer discusses implications of Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich's legal battles

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