OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich, reflecting on her recent house arrest verdict, said she has no “remorse” and will not “apologize” for leading a movement that demanded an end to all COVID mandates.
Lich revealed in an X post this week that in conversations with her lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, over the past few months, she told him, “I would not, and could not, express remorse as it would be dishonest and disingenuous.”
“To whom shall I apologize? The thousands of Canadians who stopped planning to take their own lives when the convoy started? To the thousands of Canadians who were able to return to their jobs? Or should I apologize to all the Canadians who can kiss their dying loved ones or have their families over for Thanksgiving?” she observed.
On October 7, Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey sentenced Lich and Chris Barber to 18 months’ house arrest after being convicted earlier in the year convicted of “mischief.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government was hoping to put Lich in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years for their roles in the 2022 protests against COVID mandates.
Interestingly, Perkins-McVey said about Lich and Barber during the sentencing, “They came with the noblest of intent and did not advocate for violence.”
In Lich’s X post, she noted that while she has “no doubt” some citizens of Ottawa “felt afraid, threatened and terrorized” by the protests, she blamed the Liberal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“How could they not when their mayor and politicians were labeling us as an angry mob coming to overthrow the government before we even left Alberta?” she wrote.
“Do I feel bad for these people? Of course I do. I wish no ill will upon anyone. However, it was their very own leaders who lied to them and misled them. There are citizens in Ottawa genuinely afraid of working-class Canadians, who had never met a trucker or an oil patch worker.”
Lich noted how she told her lawyer that she would “serve 100 years in prison before I will ever apologize.”
Specifically, Barber was handed an 18-month conditional sentence, with a concurrent three-month sentence for counseling disobedience of a court order that can be served in the community.
Lich was given 18 months less time already spent in custody, amounting to 15 1/2 months.
Both Lich and Barber must remain in their house for the first 12 months except for medical emergencies and certain appointments. They are allowed to work and can leave their house for certain permitted activities for up to five hours once a week. They were also given a curfew and 100 hours of community service.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Barber thanked Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis for “speaking up” in support of him and Canadians’ freedom rights after he and Lich were sentenced.
LifeSiteNews reported that Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre offered his thoughts on the sentencing, wishing them a “peaceful” life while stopping short of blasting the sentence as his fellow MPs did.
In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s government enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022.
During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse, and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.
Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.
