Crown prosecutors have laid an additional criminal charge against 鈥淔reedom Convoy鈥� organizer Chris Barber, alleging that he encouraged truckers to disobey a court order during the Ottawa protest in early 2022.
The Saskatchewan truck driver and his co-accused, Tamara Lich, also face another six counts of other charges related to the protest, including mischief, counselling intimidation, counselling obstruction of police, and resisting or obstructing a peace officer.
On the date of the new alleged offence, Barber posted a video on his TikTok page that made reference to a court order issued two days earlier by Justice Hugh McLean that restricted the use of truck air horns in the city core.
Despite the injunction, Barber encouraged truckers to blow their horns if approached by a large number of police.
鈥淕uys, lock that door, crawl into that bunk, but before you do that, grab that horn switch and don鈥檛 let go,鈥� Barber advised in the TikTok video.
鈥淟et that f***ing horn go no matter what time it is and let it roll as long as possible, until they are busting your f***ing windows down.鈥�
A revised charge sheet filed by the Crown specifies that the offence Barber allegedly counselled was not committed 鈥� that is, no one violated the court order based on his advice.
Barber has not yet been arraigned on the new charge. His lawyer, Diane Magas, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When Barber appeared as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in November, he was asked by Ottawa lawyer Paul Champ about the TikTok video, and replied, 鈥淢y understanding was if the police come and there are mass arrests happening, we were allowed to try and warn the other drivers.鈥�
Lich appeared by video link in an Ottawa court on Wednesday, to deal with several procedural motions in advance of her and Barber鈥檚 trial, currently scheduled for September.
At the hearing, Barber鈥檚 lawyer, Diane Magas, confirmed that she had abandoned an abuse-of-process motion that had alleged Crown prosecutor Moiz Karimjee violated Barber鈥檚 rights by filing into the court record a police extract of his phone data, containing thousands of his text messages and call logs.
In an affidavit filed last month, Karimijee said he believed police included only text messages between Barber and Lich in the evidence filed into the court record. He noted that he helped Magas obtain a sealing order and publication ban on the data extract, after 麻豆影视 reported on the content of some of the messages.
Crown prosecutor Dallas Mack told the court today that Magas鈥檚 motion was based on 鈥渦nfounded鈥� and 鈥渟purious鈥� allegations of misconduct against Karimjee.
Lich and Barber are currently released on bail.
