'Freedom Convoy' organizer defends charge of encouraging honking during protest

Chris Barber arrives at the courthouse in Ottawa on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The lawyer for "Freedom Convoy" organizer Chris Barber told a judge Monday that a court order banning honking in downtown Ottawa during the protest wasn't clear enough.

Barber and his co-accused, Tamara Lich, are defending themselves against charges of mischief, intimidation and counselling others to break the law.

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Barber faces the additional charge of counselling others to disobey a court order by encouraging protesters to honk their horns.

In a TikTok video posted during the protest, Barber let other protesters know to keep the horns down because of the court order, but said if a large group of police officers show up that they should let their horns go and not stop.

"Let that horn go, don’t let it go, when you see that mass force of police heading toward you," Barber said in the video, which has been played in court several times throughout the trial.

His lawyer, Diane Magas, said in her closing arguments that there were exceptions to the order, including emergencies.

"There is ambiguity about how far the exception goes," she said, and suggested Barber was trying to explain the limits on the court order "in his own words."

That exception wasn't clear, she argued, saying the threat of an unlawful arrest by riot police may have constituted an emergency in Barber's mind.

"That's a stretch," Justice Heather Perkins-McVey said when Magas introduced the argument Monday.

In the days before the TikTok video, Magas said Barber's social media posts suggested he had growing fears about riot police showing up and kettling protesters — a controversial law-enforcement practice that involves corralling and containing large crowds in a limited area.

She noted that it's OK to resist arrest if "it's an unlawful arrest."

Magas also raised doubts about whether everything Barber had to say on the matter was entered into evidence. Not all his TikTok videos were entered into evidence, and Magas said there could be crucial and exonerating messages contained in the ones that haven't been revealed to the court.

The protest itself lasted six weeks, as massive crowds of protesters and thousands of big rig trucks blocked intersections in downtown Ottawa near Parliament Hill and nearby residential neighbourhoods.

Incessant honking at all hours was a defining feature throughout the process, though the court heard the noise lessened somewhat after the court order put a ban on the horns.

Monday marks day four of closing arguments in the criminal trial of the two organizers, which has been legally complicated and marked with dozens of starts and stops since it began last September.

The courtroom remained crowded with supporters, some of whom attended the protest themselves.

Magas told the court last week that her client is not responsible for the individual actions of protest participants.

On Monday, she pointed to several examples of Barber attempting to help police to move trucks and other vehicles off of residential side roads and unblock streets.

"Every protest blocks streets," Magas said at the end of her arguments.

She said Barber did everything he could to "participate in a lawful protest, tried to assist to make sure it remains lawful … He did not have a positive duty to leave or to tell people to stop protesting if they were protesting legally."

Protests, she said, have no time limit.

The Crown has already told the court that Lich and Barber knowingly "crossed the line" between legal protest and illegal mischief-making. The Crown will get a chance to reply to the defence arguments before the end of the trial.

The trial is expected to continue Tuesday, when Lich's legal representatives will make their final arguments.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 19, 2024.