SPOILER ALERT Freedom Convoy's Chris Barber cross-examination testimony to Emergencies Act inquiry

This clip is excerpted from Chris Barber's 3 November 2022 testimony at the Rouleau inquiry. Here he is cross-examined by a lawyer working for the Government of Canada named Andrew Gibbs. Barber's full testimony can be found at Ref [0]. Barber is one of a handful of people who started a grassroots movement [1] to convey to the Trudeau government their displeasure at (specifically) the cross-border clot shot mandate imposed by the Canada Border Services Agency [2] in January 2022 on transport truck drivers. Barber and most of the organizers are cross-border transport contractors, and were faced with losing their jobs if they heeded not the instruction of the government to comply. As a result of the antipathy they felt, they decided to converge in Ottawa at the end of January 2022 and attempt to have a conversation with some federal government officials, be they bureaucrats or Members of Parliament.

In the event, they were unsuccessful. The Trudopians gave them the cold shoulder and went so far as to invoke for the first time ever on 14 February the Emergencies Act, which allowed them (so they thought) to bring out the goons and thus to suspend civil liberties enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms [3] at Section 2.

On 17 February Barber was arrested by the police, and he faces criminal charges (which will be heard sometime in 2023). He is now under strict bail conditions.

It is incomprehensible that Barber and the other organizers who are subject to criminal prosecution considered even for a second testifying to the Rouleau commission in advance of their trials because the Crown now has access to the transcripts and has the advantage of time. In the adversarial system it never makes sense to give your opponents any advantage. They may not have had the benefit of counsel; this is one case where the state has crushing leverage over the common man who might be forced to choose between feeding his family this month and retaining counsel. You can't feed your family from behind bars. Or in other words, what is the present value of, say, the avoidance of 12 months behind bars?

Barber might have chosen to invoke his right to remain silent.

But an essay on incarceration isn't the point of this web page. It is the conduct of the cross-examiner, or rather the details of what he reveals, which astounds me. It is almost a shame to write about his stunning revelation. The reader should be forced to listen to the entire 30 minute clip. But I summarize here in one sentence:

Because Trudeau would not talk to the protestors and lost control of the situation, his finance minister Chrystia Freeland was the target of a death threat on 16 February. It is instructive to listen to the crescendo of questions by Gibbs that lead up to this statement (subsequent to 22:30).

It says here that the Rouleau inquiry is being used by the Crown as a fishing expedition bloodlessly to hang Pat King, a la Louis Riel but without the mess.

Perhaps government is just taking advantage of the strict time limitations imposed by the Emergencies Act statute law [4]: at Section 63 it is written that "within three hundred and sixty days after the expiration or revocation of the declaration of emergency" the commission report is to be laid before Parliament.

Still and all, it would have been nice to see justice done to those who were charged, well prior to Barber's testimony at the Rouleau inquiry.

Alea jacta est.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiLCBG9cYXU

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Border_Services_Agency

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms

[4] https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/E-4.5/FullText.html