With the trial of Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber two months in, defence attorney Lawrence Greenspon breaks down court proceedings. Lich and Barber are charged with mischief, obstruction, intimidation, and counselling to commit the same charges not committed. The trial, originally scheduled for 16 court days, will go into December, and likely January, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey said last week. Greenspon appeared on American Thought Leaders podcast Friday to discuss the trial, the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the use of the word “occupation.”The Crown prosecutors are attempting to prove Lich and Barber counselled truckers to come to Ottawa, stay in Ottawa and commit “various unlawful acts” in Ottawa, yet “so far the evidence hasn't supported that Crown theory at all,” Greenspon said.“The challenge for the prosecution is it’s up to them to of course prove the case against Lich and Barber beyond a reasonable doubt,” he explained..Greenspon was asked about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unprecedented invocation of the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022 in response to the protest, and if it was an appropriate response to the situation. The act hadn’t been used in 50 years, since Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, invoked what was then called the War Measures Act. In that case, a foreign diplomat had been kidnapped and murdered by the Quebec terrorist group Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).Trudeau Sr. famously responded to concerns surrounding the invocation of the civil liberties-restricting war act with a brazen, simple statement. “Just watch me,” he defiantly told reporters at the time. He later described Canada as being in a “state of apprehended insurrection.”Greenspon rejected the parallels between the two instances. “We were light years from that on February 14,” the defence attorney said. “It doesn't fit in at all,” Greenspon explained. “There has been in Canada a separate, mandatory Commission of Inquiry. The conclusion there was that the requirements in order to invoke the Emergencies Act were in place and had been met.”“That certainly doesn't square with the fact that on February the 14th, 102 trucks were moved with the cooperation of the protesters and the police, and that the real, predicate problem of the truckers in the downtown core impacting the residential neighborhoods.”“That problem had already begun to be solved and within 24 hours of that, the prime minister invoked the Emergency Measures Act." “It's really a mystery to me, as somebody who's seeing this evidence unfold, how that conclusion could have been reached, but according to the commissioner, the prime minister was justified invoking the emergency measures, certainly not from what we're hearing in this trial.”Greenspon said once the noise from the horns was dealt with early in the protest, which was solved by a 'honking injunction' put in place February 7, “what took place was peaceful.”“And certainly didn't justify the imposition of emergency measures,” he added. Greenspon, who has represented terrorists, murderers and “far more serious criminal cases” than the Lich, Barber trial, said “the amount of energy and resources that's being put into this is — I mean we're going to have the Freedom Convoy trial lasting longer than the Freedom Convoy itself.”“I think in and of itself that says something.”Greenspon also addressed a question surrounding the use of the word 'occupation,' which was addressed earlier in the trial. The Crown and Crown witnesses continued to refer to the protest as such, and “certainly anybody who's familiar with what's going on in Ukraine or historically what's been deemed an occupation would feel that this was really an exaggerated term,” he said. “To suggest that the truckers who were in Ottawa for about three weeks and the traffic was difficult for people to get to and from, there were emergency lanes that were maintained for the most part, according to the evidence.”“To try to refer to that as an occupation is an insult to the people in the world who are genuinely suffering under an occupation.” Greenspon noted since the issue came up in court, the protest has no longer been referred to as an occupation.
