Op-Ed - Daze of Protest

October 13, 2025

key points from this story:

• Lich and Barber get conditional sentences
• No criminal records handed down
• Trial lasted 3.5 years
• Protest described as peaceful
• Costs and delays criticized
• Prosecution called petty and vindictive

Encouraging to see some common sense, finally enacted as concerns the mischief trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who were handed down conditional sentences with no criminal records. But here's the thing! Federal and provincial prosecutors have realized for some time now that they were never going to achieve their goal of absolutely ridiculous prison sentences for Lich and Barber, so they actually succeeded in weaponizing the trial itself. Stretching this absolute debacle of a trial, complete with kangaroos, over the course of 3.5 years, and God alone only knows how many millions of taxpayers' money, in an attempt to force Lich and Barber into financial ruin! For staging a peaceful protest, which is every Canadians right! Which I always thought to be true until I witnessed Tamara Lich being quite literally dragged into court, in belly chains and leg irons, to face a mischief charge! Her most heinous crime, as the great Rex Murphy stated, may God rest his literary soul, was the good citizens of Ottawa were rendered unable to sip their creamed lattes in peace for 2 weeks! And as the inquiry into the enactment of the Emergency Measures Act concluded, honking horns, people in hot tubs, and kids in dino bouncers, do not constitute a national emergency!

I wonder if the federal and Ford government realize just how petty, vindictive and just plain silly, the prosecution of these two individuals has made them look! I doubt it very much, as my memory recalls Omar Khadr receiving 10.5 million dollars for taking up arms against his own, adopted, country! This entire trial has been little more than a complete and utter farce and a disgrace!