OTTAWA — A lawyer for some organizers of this year’s so-called “Freedom Convoy” protest in Ottawa is being sued for defamation.
The public affairs firm Enterprise Canada said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that it had filed a lawsuit against Brendan Miller, alleging he falsely accused the company and one of its employees of being involved in the weeks-long event.
As security departments and agencies are making preparations for the arrival of another Freedom Convoy in Ottawa this winter, it is likely the vehicle-based protest won’t actually be visiting the capital, an organizer told The Epoch Times.
Social media personality Andy Lee says that the city chosen to hold the event and the convoy routes leading to it will be released on Christmas Day.
The massive convoy of demonstrators that rolled into Ottawa this past winter loudly heralded a new era in Canadian politics, with blaring horns and the rumble of hundreds of idling engines.
The weeks-long “Freedom Convoy” protests in Ottawa and the kindred demonstrations that appeared at provincial legislatures and international border crossings aimed to force governments to end COVID-19 public health restrictions and vaccine mandates.
The sound of blaring horns that echoed through this village 10 months ago has been replaced by the steady hum of semi-trailer trucks filing through the border crossing between Alberta and the United States.
There is an undercurrent in the community of 250 people, belied by a smiley face on its water tower that suggests an ongoing division dating back to three weeks in late January, when a convoy of truckers and their supporters shut the border in protest of COVID-19 restrictions.
There was hope that time and community events over the year would provide healing
Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.
The heavy perils we face today include centralized governments micromanaging society, the growing prospect of global war, the growing prospect of forced surrender, and the replacement of reasoned debate and free speech with state-sanctioned “narratives” and censorship: totalitarian governance seems not far behind. This is a new kind of war against civilians for control of their minds.
The torrents engulfing us appear to be potentially catastrophic. In a few short years, the world has endured the COVID-19 pandemic, forced government lockdowns, extreme economic volatility, commodity shortages, and the World Economic Forum’s attempts to exploit this cascade of crises as an excuse to usher in a structural “Great Reset” in which global food and energy consumption can be strictly regulated according to the “climate change” goals of an unelected cabal. Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.
A majority of Canadians now oppose the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in February to counteract the Freedom Convoy protests, according to a recent poll.
Mainstreet Research polled over 1,260 Canadians over the age of 18 between Dec. 6 and Dec. 8 on their political views. One question asked, “Has your mind changed on whether the prime minister was right/wrong to invoke the Act?”
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and its former chief had no choice but to allow thousands of trucks to flood the city’s downtown during the initial stages of last winter’s convoy protest in the capital, and feared stopping them risked making a bad situation worse.
That’s according to closing submissions published Tuesday by the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is probing the federal government’s decision on Feb. 14 to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the occupation of Ottawa and similar blockades elsewhere.
This whole exercise was just a pantomime of democracy. Nothing can or will come of it beyond a reinforced knowledge that Justin Trudeau is the worst PM Canada has ever known and our ruling class is equally despicable.
PEOPLE’S COMMISSION: Prejudices and bigotry inflicted by some convoy occupiers remain, McKenney says
While “Freedom Convoy” occupiers left Ottawa months ago, the prejudices and bigotry that some of them inflicted on Centretown residents remain, Somerset Ward’s former councillor told an Ottawa People’s Commission hearing Saturday.
“The amount of transphobia that’s been left behind and racism in this city can be felt every single day,” said Catherine McKenney, who uses the pronouns they and them.
It’s a shock this woman wasn’t elected Mayor of Karenopolis.
After six weeks of testimony in Ottawa at the Public Order Emergency Commission, the federal government has failed to make its case that using the extraordinary powers in the Emergencies Act was justified.
The Emergencies Act is the successor to the War Measures Act. It is gives tremendous power to the prime minister and cabinet, including the power to create new criminal law by executive order. These are powers that must have a high threshold and which we all should be wary of in a liberal democracy.
Parliamentary staffers for the Liberal government expressed skepticism regarding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s claim that the Freedom Convoy received “disturbing amounts” of foreign funding, according to internal emails.
The emails, which were submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission and first reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter, detailed the political aides’ discussion around a media inquiry from the Wall Street Journal asking for clarification on the prime minister’s claims.
An Ontario court has rejected a request from two “Freedom Convoy” organizers to release $200,000 of frozen funds to pay for lawyers to defend a lawsuit launched on behalf of Ottawa residents and businesses.
B.J. Dichter and Chris Garrah are among a long list of defendants named in the potential class-action lawsuit filed in February, seeking damages for “civil nuisance” caused by truck horns, diesel fumes and other disruptions to residents and local businesses during the protest in January and February.
As the inquiry into the federal government’s decision to use the Emergencies Act during the ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests nears the finish line, a new survey has found that two in three Canadians say they support, at least to some degree, the invocation of the Act.
More than 1,000 Canadians were asked about their thoughts on the Emergencies Act in a survey conducted by Nanos Research in the days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the stand at the inquiry. Of the respondents, 48 per cent said they support the use of the Emergencies Act, while 18 per cent said they somewhat support the decision.
“Hybrid telephone and online methodology”
A week after testifying before the Emergencies Act inquiry, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Dec. 2 he expects police will take the appropriate measures to prevent a repeat of the Freedom Convoy as planning for a new iteration is under way.
“I think we have learned a lot, and I think police corps across the country have learned a lot about what happened last February,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Richmond, B.C.
OTTAWA — “I don’t take edicts from you, you’re not my f—ing boss.”
That’s what an Ontario cabinet minister snapped at her federal counterpart in February as he pressed for answers about how the province and Ontario Provincial Police would handle so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters who had by then paralyzed downtown Ottawa for nearly two weeks.
It was the height of what would soon be declared a national public order emergency.
Then-solicitor general Sylvia Jones’s icy retort to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino was revealed at a public inquiry in one of hundreds of fascinating texts that showed how tensions mounted, police struggled and governments fought behind the scenes.
Lawyers for “Freedom Convoy” organizers have won their bid to get access to unredacted versions of 20 documents at the Public Order Emergency Commission.
Lawyer Brendan Miller applied to have the public inquiry release information in government documents that it had blacked-out, arguing the information should not be protected by parliamentary privilege.
