Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich said she met hundreds of Ottawa residents who thanked her for putting together the trucker protest against vaccine mandates.."I encountered hundreds and hundreds of Ottawa residents thanking me, saying that we gave him hope," Lich said..Testifying Thursday at the Public Order Emergency Commission, Lich said she was inspired to organize the Freedom Convoy because she was "growing increasingly concerned with the harm I saw the mandates inflicting on Canadians."."I was seeing families torn apart. The suicides in my hometown were so numerous that they stopped reporting them," Lich said through tears..Lich said she became increasingly alarmed after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the unvaccinated racists and openly questioned whether they should be tolerated. .As the convoy travelled across Canada, Lich said Canadians kept telling her, "don't stop until we're free, don't stop until the mandates are lifted." She said every day, at least three people would tell her they had been thinking of taking their lives because of the mandates.. "I have the tears of thousands of Canadians on my shoulder, who every day told me we were bringing them hope," she said. When Lich initially started the GoFundMe, she felt "greedy" asking for $200,000. Even $100,000, which was the amount the organizers agreed on, felt like too much. Lich said she expected "maybe $20,000" in donations. But by Jan. 21 the GoFundMe had raised $1 million. "I was blown away. We did not see that coming or expect that we were going to have that level of support," she said. .Lich was asked about Ottawa residents who reported being harassed by truckers. "I never personally witnessed any behaviour like that, whatsoever. I also heard the Russians were involved and that we tried to burn down a building. There was a lot of misinformation," she said. When asked about organizer Pat King, Lich said she was aware he was a "very controversial figure" who had a tendancy to say "inflammatory things." King was criticized for claiming that the prime minister was going to "catch a bullet," and that the mandates would only end with "bullets." Lich said while King was a "bit of a hothead," he had been involved from the start of the Freedom Convoy, was looking after accommodations in Sault Ste. Marie, and there were concerns that if he left, the people that supported him would too. At one point during the journey across Canada, Lich told King not to come to Ottawa and he agreed. But he ended up at the protest anyway. .Lich was asked if she regretted letting King being a part of the Freedom Convoy. "He's a part of the story. Things happened the way they were supposed to happen. And I guess he had a part to play. Hindsight is 2020, right?" she said. After the Emergencies Act was implemented on Feb. 14, Lich said nobody directly told the Freedom Convoy they had to leave. Lich said the only difference was there were larger groups of police officers, but they were still just "standing around." "I started to get quite anxious about what could be coming," she said. Lich said on Feb. 17, several of the road captains and truckers started to leave Ottawa, "which, of course, I encouraged." She had heard rumours a larger police presence was set to arrive and didn't want to see anybody get hurt or be arrested. .Lich described to the commission her arrest on Feb. 18, shortly after organizers Dichter and Chris Barber had been apprehended by police. When asked how her arrest had impacted her, Lich said she has lost her job, her freedom of speech, and her freedom to communicate with her friends.."We'd just experienced something huge and we didn't even get any time to sit down as a group and talk about our experience," Lich said, referring to the conditions of her bail preventing her from talking to Barber and Dichter. "I have to be very careful about every move I make..Lich told the commission she has yet to see the details of the mischief charges she was alleged to have committed. "It's definitely affected my life. I've never been arrested before. The legal process, I find extremely frustrating. I have to live under these legal conditions for a year," she said.."But I'll make it work. I will manage."
