The Longest Mischief Trial in History
The Lich/Barber trial is an attempt to criminalize the Freedom Convoy. The integrity of the legal system is in question.
The Tamara Lich/Chris Barber trial continued today, the longest mischief trial in history. The legal system is supposed to operate with disinterested objectivity, but with this trial, it has become the tool of woke politics. The Lich/Barber trial is an attempt to criminalize the Freedom Convoy.
The estimable Eva Chipiuk, tormentor of the Prime Minister (“When did your government start to become so afraid of your own citizens?”), asked on Twitter what is going on with the Lich/Barber trial, and here is a more fully developed version of my answer, in a form more permanent than Twitter. At bottom, the Lich/Barber trial points to the perils for civil liberties of a left-captured legal system, a left-captured media, and a left-captured intelligentsia.
The evidence against Tamara Lich and Chris Barber is non-existent, in fact exculpatory, and yet the crown continues. None of the crown’s witnesses had contact with Tamara. The prosecution produced evidence of her calling for peaceful protest and respectful conduct toward the police. The only witnesses who had contact with Chris were police officers, with whom Chris cooperated to open emergency lanes. The evidence is nugatory.
Here are eight political and bureaucratic factors that have pushed the crown into this:
1. Ideology: The state is familiar with demonstrations by the left, which are habitual. As the left usually demands in one way or another a larger state, the state does not find leftist demonstrations too disturbing. But demonstrators demanding a smaller and less intrusive state are unfamiliar, and perceived as unnatural, their demands as threatening. The massive and spontaneous popular support for the Freedom Convoy only increased the consternation of the state and the bureaucratic classes, and their determination to prevent a repetition.
2. Stereotypes: Stereotypes about westerners, and about rural and working-class people are strong, especially in government and media. The government went for the easy button: “They’re racist! Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism!” The urban laptop class media followed obediently, their preconceptions reinforced, their eyes averted from contrary evidence.
3. Local Politicians: Hard-left Antifa-adjacent Ottawa politicians (McKenney, Harden, Troster, Fleury) created an outcry against the Convoy, making many subsequently refuted accusations, petering out in microaggressions. These politicians started the $300 million lawfare suit against convoy leaders. They also have substantial influence if not direct control over the local government and therefore the police. Ottawa being a leftwing city — its primary industry being bureaucracy, it could hardly be otherwise — they face little opposition.
4. The Ottawa Police: The Ottawa Police Service beclowned itself during the convoy, and is trying to get back into the good books of those same leftist politicians, who influence their budget and their careers. This accounts for threatening speeches from Assistant Chief Steve Bell, and for the absurd assignment of an experienced homicide detective (!) to investigate Tamara for counseling mischief. Obviously, they want/need a conviction. And yet they show up to trial without notes, and internal records are mysteriously purged, almost as though they might redound to the credit of Chris and Tamara.
5. Crown Prosecutor: The first crown prosecutor, Moiz Karimjee, is politically on the left, is a long-time Liberal contributor,1 has supported using the criminal law to prosecute speech,2 and declared that the Convoy was "at war with the city of Ottawa."3 He attempted with some success to deny bail to Tamara, keeping a peaceful protester in jail for two months, in a system where murderers get bail. He will have approved the cross-Canada warrant for Tamara Lich, on a bail violation charge so thin that it has now been dropped. Such warrants are usually reserved for violent criminals. His conduct was highly irregular.
Karimjee was sufficiently unhinged that he was eventually removed from the case. But a system created, enabled, and failed to control him for the first 18 months of the case. He was allowed to pursue his vendetta by a left-captured legal system, where there are simply no dissenters in the office. The current prosecutors are now stuck with Karimjee’s case. They may want it thrown out on time or procedural grounds, thus avoiding the institutional humiliation of a not-guilty verdict.
6. The Judiciary: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Richard Wagner has called for "all figures of power in the country" to oppose the Freedom Convoy.4 Former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who did much to form the current judiciary and is still vastly influential, has been similarly outspoken against the Freedom movement, calling it “the ugly side of freedom”.5 Bureaucracies, like other authoritarian systems, operate more on signals than on direct commands: these are signals to the judiciary and to the legal profession as a whole to get on side, or your career is in question. The current judge will need to proceed carefully, or any acquittal or dismissal will be overturned on appeal.
7. The Mainstream Media: All of the institutions named above operate in an environment conditioned by a left-captured mainstream media, massively hostile to, and uncomprehending of, the Freedom movement. The media both motivates and covers for this vindictive prosecution.
8. The Academy: The academy trains the reporters, lawyers, judges and even police officials mentioned above. Academic leftism has left the sociology department, and now owns the law faculties and the journalism schools. Secondly, the academy provides a never-ending stream of putative experts ready to warn against the impending dangers of right-wing extremism. As I document here, some of them feed paranoia directly into the security state, and into the Liberal cabinet, and that was the case during the Freedom Convoy.
No single one of these factors can account for the decision to proceed with this case. Karimjee may be an ideologue, but he could do nothing without the bureaucratic and political system supporting him. No leftist protester would have been pursued with such vindictive enthusiasm. Were the mainstream media to do its job, we would have some account, from a knowledgeable journalist with courthouse sources, of the irregular and politically inflected prosecutorial decision-making that created this outrage. But the mainstream media is hostile to the Freedom Convoy, and does not do its job.
The legal profession and surrounding institutions are in question. Where are all the traditional civil liberties organizations? Pro-bono lawyers came out of the woodwork for Islamic terrorists. The Canadian Bar Association couldn’t shut up about Omar Khadr. Working people from the prairies are not so much to their taste. It was necessary for true civil libertarians to create The Democracy Fund and The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom almost from scratch.
Tamara and Chris have outstanding lawyers, and apparently a tough-minded and independent judge. But to place hope of an acquittal in them is to look to the accidents of personality to remedy the defects of a system. Even if acquitted tomorrow, Tamara and Chris have already faced a process that amounts to a punishment.
The woke left has captured the institutions, and now has the power to jail dissenters. A discriminatory use of the criminal law is one of the characteristics of authoritarian regimes. This regime has deep institutional roots.
Thanks - still doing my best to boost it on Twitter.
Excellent work.