The courtroom was cleared and Zoom link cancelled at the pre-trial of Randy Hillier in Ottawa Thursday after the Crown requested a publication ban. The former MPP faces nine charges for protesting Covid-19 mandates during the Freedom Convoy in February 2022, including mischief, counselling to commit mischief, assaulting a peace officer, and obstructing a peace officer.“What they did today, unexpectedly, was they cleared the courtroom, they cleared the zoom link, they would not allow anybody to see what was going on," Hillier said. “The Crown is seeking a publication ban on pre-trial evidence."As courts in Canada, once a global bastion of democracy, become less transparent — with Hillier's case, the prevention of proceedings being shared from inside the courtroom of the trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, and the publication ban on the Coutts 4 as their proceedings transpire in Alberta — it was recently reported courts in Hong Kong will be broadcast in an attempt to win public trust.Hillier decries the lack of transparency in the Canadian judicial system and said he was going to do all he can to oppose the publication ban. He also criticized the Crown for the long delay in handing over the disclosure to him."I'm going to be opposing that," he announced. "I've got another [court] date scheduled next Thursday, because today was the first day I got disclosure even though I had been requesting it for two weeks now and that the Crown had assured me that they were going to courier me the disclosure, I only got it today.” Before the court was cleared Hillier’s bail conditions were addressed. Currently he is not legally allowed in the downtown core without legal counsel, despite his summons to court in that very area. “So technically I am still breaking the law being summoned to court here in Ottawa,” Hillier said on video following the court appearance, adding he is seeking to have his bail conditions amended for next Thursday’s court date. “I'm pushing on this one,” Hillier said. “The crown has indicated that they will be making variations to my bail before I appear here next week, but right now the bail conditions would frustrate the administration of justice, because it prevents me from speaking with material witnesses, prevents me from collecting evidence from the scene of the crime, the great assault on Parliament Hill and it prohibits me from speaking about things that are relevant and material to the case.” “Well we started punching back today, is what we did,” Hillier said. “You can see we haven't knocked this monster in this machine down yet but we're starting to land a few little blows.".Prior to the courtroom being cleared out, Hillier, who is representing himself, also told the courtroom he was having issues dealing directly with the crown without legal counsel. “I asked the judge to consider how the Crown is behaving, how it's adding needless delays and expense and wasting the Court's time because the Crown attorney refuses refuses to speak with me outside of court.” “Now they do that with legal counsel all the time, but the audacity that this Crown counsel said ‘double standards are the standards of our law here in Canada,’ that he doesn't have to speak with me outside of court and I explained to the judge that this is a very trivial matter now that is disagreeable to one another, will have to be argued in the court.”“So as a result right now I have in addition to another hour-and-a-half of judicial pre-trial next week, the judge has recognized at least another seven days of hearing motions on this pre-trial conference report," Hillier said. “The judge is now suggesting that these mischief charges, these trumped up spurious falsehoods of criminal activity, won't be heard in the court until 2025.” “Well past the Jordan rule,” he added, citing the rule in Canadian courts where someone accused of a crime has the right to trial within a reasonable time. “But I'm going to keep after these guys. I'm not going to give them an inch."."I'm going to contest, but I want my day in court and this Crown, the Ottawa Crown, has abused and has been punitive to so many people, and they have put burdens on them, they've put stress and financial ruin on so many people, we're going to put the pressure on these guys — I'm not going to accept this publication, I'm going to fight it, we want to fight every inch along the way and make them feel the heat for a change.”
