Free Republic

Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich being arrested by Ottawa Police tonight

Chris Barber, a key organizer of the so-called Freedom Convoy that has occupied Ottawa streets for three weeks, has been arrested in Ottawa, CBC News has learned. Barber, who is currently in police custody and is expected to face criminal charges, has been described as one of the key leaders of the protest in Ottawa, which has now hit the three-week mark. Barber is also one of three protest organizers named in the class action lawsuit filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by lawyer Paul Champ on behalf of his client, 21-year-old public servant Zexi Li. The suit...

...One myth that was busted right away was the striking diversity of the protestors starting with the two main organizers, Benjamin Dichter, who is Jewish and Tamara Lich, who is Métis. Far from being a uniformly disgruntled group of white Canadians, not that there is anything wrong with being that, one saw Indo-Canadians, Arab Canadians, Chinese Canadians, Black Canadians and just about every other ethnic Canadian under the sun.

As the first vehicles from the trucker convoy started appearing on Ottawa streets, some Twitter users shared a particular photo: a pickup truck with a confederate flag flying from the bed. Now, as the convoy descends on Ottawa with the stated aim of opposing all COVID-19 mandates, anti-hate experts allege those with white nationalist and Islamophobic views don’t just represent the fringes of the movement but are among the organizers of the convoy. “We’re saying that this is a far-right convoy because — from day one — the organizers themselves are part of the far-right movement,” said Evan Balgord, executive...