(Ottawa) Lawyers for two organizers of the so-called “freedom convoy” resumed their arguments Friday in a legal battle over access to internal documents of the Ottawa Police Service.
The defense disputes the police thesis according to which some of these documents are protected by “lawyer professional secrecy”.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are on trial for their roles in the protest against COVID-19 health measures that paralyzed the streets of Ottawa for three weeks in the winter of 2022.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Chris Barber
They face multiple charges, including mischief, counseling others to commit wrongdoing and intimidation. The Crown seeks to prove that these two leading organizers had an influence on the actions of the demonstrators.
The trial was frequently delayed due to problems with the admissibility of evidence.
Defense lawyers want emails that show what evidence police officers were asked to turn over in connection with this case, as well as any instructions given to officers about updating the software on their cellphones at the end of the trial. demonstration.
This software update may have deleted messages between Mr. Barber and police liaison officer Nicole Bach, who was considered one of the main contacts of the convoy organizer.
In response to its request, the defense received only heavily redacted emails. The Crown and Ottawa police argue that this redaction excluded information that was irrelevant to the case or protected by attorney-client privilege.
The Crown, defense lawyers and those from the Ottawa police presented their legal arguments on the documents to the judge all day Thursday and early Friday.
Testimony of a sergeant
Friday afternoon, the hearing of witnesses in this trial resumed with Sergeant Jordan Blonde, a police officer described as a “secondary” contact of Mr. Barber, at the bar. Mr. Blonde described “hostile” scenes that led to the police operation to forcibly remove protesters from downtown Ottawa.
He told the court that police tried to hand out notices to protesters to “peacefully leave” the city center on February 16 and 17, 2022. One person then took the flyer and flushed it down the toilet in the middle of Wellington Street, which runs along Parliament Hill.
Sergeant Blonde also stated that on February 17, approximately three weeks after the start of the demonstration, he witnessed a scene where demonstrators were behaving in a hostile manner. He said police had withdrawn from an area a few steps from Parliament Hill.
Police began “operation dismantling” the next day, February 18, when the federal government used the Emergency Measures Act. Sergeant Blonde said Friday he spoke to several people at the protest who were “very insistent on getting arrested.”
He also described an outpost of convoy participants gathered in a parking lot near an eastern stadium in the federal capital, home of the Ottawa Titans baseball team. He said he saw saunas, tents, ropes of wood, stacks of propane tanks and around 60 vehicles. “People lived in this parking lot. It was quite a strange sight,” Sergeant Blonde said.
Lawyers for the co-defendants later told the court they do not want to cross-examine Mr Blonde until Judge Heather Perkins-McVey has ruled on the police documents requested by the defence.
The trial is expected to resume Tuesday with the continuation of Sergeant Blonde’s questioning by the Crown.