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The trial of two leaders of trucker protests that brought Canada’s capital to a standstill and disrupted trade last year — inspiring similar demonstrations around the world — opened on Tuesday. online news
The self-styled “Freedom Convoy” rolled into Ottawa in early 2022 from across Canada to express anger at Covid vaccine mandates.
After three weeks of turmoil, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to dislodge the protesters, which political opponents and civil liberties groups criticized as overreach.
Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber now face charges of mischief, obstructing police, counseling others to commit mischief and intimidation of parliament.
“The central issue,” lawyers for both said in a statement, “will be whether the actions of two of the organizers of a peaceful protest should warrant criminal sanction.”
Many facts of the case are not in dispute as Lich and Barber documented the protest in online posts. Lich also published a book in April about her experience in Ottawa.
In court, defense attorney Lawrence Greenspon argued that the protest was not an “occupation,” as it was widely described.
It is “an insult to anyone who’s survived an occupation to be called what happened in Ottawa an occupation,” he told reporters, pointing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Prosecutors said they will call almost two dozen witnesses during the 16-day trial including police and city officials.
They will also present evidence that Lich and Barber fueled unrest in Ottawa, and ignored orders to leave even after the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.
Many residents of Ottawa complained about incessant honking noise and harassment during the protest.
If convicted, Lich and Barber face up to 10 years in prison.
Danny Bulford, a former police officer who quit the prime minister’s security detail over Covid-19 vaccine mandates and joined the protest, told public broadcaster CBC a guilty verdict would lead to deeper mistrust of the legal system from people who “already feel disenfranchised.”
Ottawa’s former police chief Peter Sloly had described the scene during the protest as a “tinder box waiting to explode.”
Organizers and participants, however, painted a different picture, calling their actions legitimate pushback against “evil” government policies and describing a festive atmosphere in front of parliament, with hot tubs, bouncy castles and barbecues.
As solidarity rallies popped up — blocking trade corridors including a bridge to Detroit that is the busiest international crossing in North America — their demands expanded to a broader rejection of pandemic restrictions and an anti-establishment agenda.
Nearly 200 people were arrested when police eventually moved in to clear the Ottawa protesters and their big rigs.
A public inquiry in February found the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act as circumstances had risked becoming “dangerous and unmanageable.”
amc/bgs
© Agence France-Presse. All rights are reserved.
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Notes from APS Radio News
According to Statista, in the US, for example, the average mortality rate of the virus was .07%.
Statista is an award-winning service whose clients include governments and corporations.
Dr. John Ioannidis, a scientist who specializes in evidence-based medicine, concluded that the recovery rate for most age groups was about 99%.
Basic virology indicates that one who is a-symptomatic but who is infected is rather less likely to be contagious than is one who infected and symptomatic.
In Canada, as in other countries that have had high rates of vaccine participation, the number of virus cases recorded continued to increase.
As of the end of May 2023, Canada’s vaccine participation rate was 90%.
Earlier this year, Canada’s vaccine participation rate was about 86%, according to Our World in Data.
In particular, whereas as of June 21, 2021, Canada had recorded 1,408,836 virus cases, when that country’s vaccine participation rate was about 70%, as of May 10, 2023, Canada recorded 4,640,341 virus cases.
In contrast, whereas as of October 6, 2021, Nigeria had recorded 205,561 virus cases, as of July 4, 2022, Nigeria recorded 257,637 cases.
In October 2021, Nigeria’s vaccine participation rate was 2.3%; in July 2022, Nigeria’s vaccine participation rate was about 135, according to Our World in Data.
As of May 10, 2023, Nigeria recorded 266,675, when that country’s vaccine participation rate was only about 30%.
Nigeria’s population is several times that of Canada’s.
Analysts say that Nigeria, as was true of a number of other countries, permitted unrestricted access to anti-viral treatments whose access was restricted in a number of countries.
The number of virus cases by country was cross-referenced to the rate of vaccine participation by country.
According to VAERS and EudraVigilance of the European Medicines Agency, since the mRNA vaccine was brought to the public, several millions of adverse events have been recorded.
In the US, through the laws of NCVIA and the PrepAct, vaccine makers have legal immunity.
In 2021 alone, from sales of its version of the covid vaccine, Pfizer made over $33 billion, according to Agence France Presse.
During the early part of 2021, a number of European countries prohibited the use of AstraZeneca’s and Moderna’s versions, citing concerns about blood clots and heart inflammation.
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