@emmettmacfarlane.com:
Was COVID the causal factor that ‘changed’ things, or did the pandemic simply reveal that a sizeable portion of the population is in fact made up of a combination of stupid and/or bad people?
@tvotoday.bsky.social:
“COVID changed the role of information and how we think about communicating with each other and media and the public.” — @deonandan.bsky.social (@uottawa.ca) …
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
There’s a portion susceptible to mis/disinformation around vaccines, masks, school closures, etc. There’s another portion who actively pushed disinformation, because they found such things inconvenient and didn’t care who died without precautions.
Those two groups are who the rest of us live with.
Matt Blair @mjmbca.bsky.social:
“Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else noticed?”
@greenrocks.bsky.social:
The typical asshole behaviour “they witnessed what we did and now we’re worried they’ll call us on our shit”. Jackasses
“Lawyers for the truckers argued that everyone who worked at the Ottawa Courthouse, including its judges, witnessed the occupation of downtown.”
Lawsuit against truckers’ convoy to proceed in Ottawa, Toronto judge rules, Lawyers for the truckers argued that everyone who worked at the Ottawa Courthouse, including its judges, witnessed the occupation of downtown by Andrew Duffy, Jun 23, 2025, Ottawa Citizen
Everyone sure did see! A lot of crimes by the Fucker Trucker gang
A Toronto judge has ruled that proceedings in the proposed class action lawsuit against the truckers’ convoy will be held in Ottawa — the city most affected by its mayhem.
In a recent ruling, Mr. Justice Benjamin Glustein dismissed a change of venue motion filed by the defendants, who wanted the proceedings transferred to Toronto to ensure procedural fairness.
Oh, I am sure it had nothing to do with that, rather, the selfish cockroach fuckers don’t want any of the many harmed residents to be able to attend hearings. Douche fuckers like most MAGAts are.
Lawyers for the truckers argued that everyone who worked at the Ottawa Courthouse, including its judges, witnessed the occupation of downtown.Too funny!!!
One of the defendants, Chris Garrah, filed an affidavit in which he suggested courthouse staff could potentially benefit from any settlement in the proposed class action.
“Given … the notoriety and divisiveness of the protest and its aftermath, including this action,” Garrah said, “I am concerned about the appearance of fairness if this case were to proceed in Ottawa.”
Justice Glustein, however, ruled that the simple assertion of unfairness is not enough to grant a change of venue motion. There must be a reasonable apprehension of unfairness, he said, supported by evidence.
“Even if court staff are part of a proposed class,” he said, “transfer of venue is not appropriate when there is a total lack of evidence that any potential class member employed at the courthouse would have any influence on a judge hearing either the certification motion or the trial.”
Glustein said that while Ottawa judges may have witnessed convoy events in Ottawa, it leaves them in no different a position than a Toronto judge who may have seen it in the media.
“Despite the notoriety of the Freedom Convoy, there is a presumption that the judge assigned to this matter would assess the evidence and arguments impartially,” said Glustein, who noted that a change of venue motion was rejected in criminal cases that flowed from the same protest.
Convoy organizers James Bauder and Pat King both lost bids to have their criminal trials moved from Ottawa.
The judge also noted the defendants could have brought a change of venue application much earlier given that the lawsuit is now more than three years old. The court has already issued more than a dozen pre-certification decisions in the case, Glustein said, including rulings on Mareva orders, escrow funds and dismissal motions.
Ottawa lawyer Paul Champ, who’s representing Zexi Li and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the judge’s ruling affirms the importance of holding a case in the affected community.
“It’s more than three years ago, but the Freedom Convoy experience still hangs over the people of Ottawa,” Champ said. “There’s a strong interest in seeing it through.”
Champ said he’ll now request a case management conference so that a certification motion can proceed late this year or early next year.
The proposed class action seeks damages for personal harm and financial losses experienced by residents, businesses and workers in downtown Ottawa during the noisy, disruptive protest in February 2022.
The class action has yet to be certified by the court — a necessary step for it to proceed. If it does go ahead, the lawsuit promises to be complex.
As Justice Calum MacLeod noted in one of his pre-certification rulings: “Assuming the action in certified, it will ultimately pit the right of the plaintiffs to seek tort damages against the rights of the defendants to engage in what they assert to have been a lawful and constitutionally protected exercise of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.”
The defendants have argued they cannot be held legally responsible for the actions of other protesters who may have blasted their horns.
Champ has argued the occupation was illegal, and was planned and conducted in such a way as to intentionally inflict harm on local residents, making organizers legally liable for those damages.
Kelly Adams:
funny… All this concern about “fairness” now by the protesters. They weren’t thinking about fairness when they invaded downtown Ottawa and wreaked havoc on the residents who live there, as well as the rest of the city. I’m glad to hear the trial will be held in Ottawa, where the impact was deeply felt, and numerous people were traumatized by the behaviour of some of the protesters.
Ben Hart:
Numerous laws broken from a city perspective. Blaring horns at all hours, blocking streets and generally just ignoring any bylaws for weeks on end is illegal. Numerous incidents of aggressive and harrassing behavior from convoy protestors to people in Ottawa , is illegal. Several property crimes , such as destruction of private property and using the War Memorial, also illegal. And that’s just the city. The Ontario government stepped in at some point and declared the protest illegal and told the protestors to go home or face the consequences. We’ve arrived at the consequences part of the story. To suggest otherwise is a bad faith argument.
@PaulChampLaw Jun 20:
Freedom Convoy Class Action Update. Motion by Defendants to transfer action to Toronto bc Ottawa is “unfair” is dismissed. Court says it would be contrary to the interests of justice to transfer trial from the place where the litigation directly affects the local community.
Such waste of time and money, I am sure intentional. Encana, Alberta gov’t and AER pulled same illegal expensive stunt in the beginning of my lawsuit, but Alberta has a dirty fossil fuel contaminated judicial industry, and Herr Hideous Harper directly appointed and shuffled all the judges on my case, up and down and back and forth, while I still had lawyers. So dirty, the ooze slimed and stank across the court room floors and the judge gave the defendants their demand. I believe because they (judges and defendants) wanted the case to cost me much more money (I was putting every penny I had into the monstrous legal fees), and to prevent others harmed by Encana’s frac crimes in my community from attending for the same reasons – cost, distance and time to travel and intimidation.
I refused to attend the hearing in Calgary, where it was out of jurisdiction; I attended the hearing sitting all day in the Drumheller court waiting room with a witness (and we asked the court clerks for permission first).
Jan 2013: Drumheller Court House, me walking to the entrance, stressed to the limits because I expected the RCMP would be sent to arrest me, Trudeau you know, even though he did not become PM until more than two years later.
Then, Harper yanked J Veldhuis, she was not allowed to rule on the hearing she heard in Calgary, in the wrong jurisdiction (the frac harms did not happen in Calgary). Harper then had Neil C Wittmann (super sleazy contradictory judge) shuffled down to take over, and rule on a hearing he did not attend, or hear. Shit show circle jerk fossil fuel “justice.”
2011: Jessica Ernst and Magic with the historic high school student T-Rex in Drumheller. My favourite of all the dinosaurs in Drum. Sadly, a drunk drive crashed into him a few years later, and destroyed it beyond repair. The town had to tear it down. I still grieve the loss, every time I drive by.