Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were given 18 months house arrest, along with other requirements, as part of their sentencing for their role in the 2022 protest against COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns.

Their sentencing follows what became the longest mischief trial in Canadian history. The convoy protest was brought to a forceful end following then-prime minister Justin Trudeau's invoking of the Emergencies Act, a counterterrorism or war-time measure which was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the Federal Court.

The full details of the conditional sentences doled out to Lich and Barber was reported by Rebel News publisher Ezra Levant, who was in Ottawa covering the hearing as it happened:

• Conditional sentence of 18 months less time already spent in custody, therefore 15.5 months
• First 12 months: house arrest, except to and from court medical emergencies, appointments, religious services
• Five hours a week for shopping
• Remaining 3.5 months curfew between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. except for medical emergencies
• 100 hours community service
• Lich was given a special exemption to attend her coming grandchild's birth

On Wednesday's Buffalo Roundtable livestream, hosts Sheila Gunn Reid and Lise Merle were joined by Brendan Miller, a criminal lawyer who represented the convoy during the Public Order Emergency Commission, an inquiry mandated by the Emergencies Act legislation itself.

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Justice Heather Perkins-McVey followed a similar sentence given to Marco Van Huigenbois, one of the protesters charged in the border blockade in Coutts, Alberta, which occurred simultaneously to the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa.

“There is a long history of sentences passed down for protests that include a form of blockade or mischief,” Miller explained. “What those cases do, is they create what's called a range,” he explained, detailing how courts seek verdicts that give similar offenders similar treatments for similar crimes.

However, the highest sentence in these examples was given to Van Huigenbois, which was in the six months range, he said. 

Miller also touched on the discussion surrounding the treatment of convoy protesters to the regular pro-Hamas demonstrations that have occurred in the aftermath of the terror group's October 7, 2023, terror attack against Israel.

“They're not as long in length or duration, but they are chanting violence,” Miller said, noting these groups are calling “for the destruction of a people and a nation.”

In the case of the convoy, which dragged on for weeks as protesters remained in the nation's capital, police and local officials “created the situation” by diverting the demonstration to the city's downtown core.

“As far as I'm concerned, there had to be some sort of messing around about why that would be allowed,” Miller said, suspecting officials were anticipating the protest to be over after its first weekend due to the inclement Canadian weather in February.

“They created this situation, the government did. They invited them into downtown Ottawa and put them where they were, and then they didn't like the result. And that's what bothers me the most about this case.”