Ottawa residents are suing organizers of the 2022 Freedom Convoy for $290 million in damages, claiming “psychological distress.” The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled the proposed class action lawsuit should proceed, reported Blacklock’s.

“Any determination on the merits patently will require a deep dive into the evidence and the making of extensive findings of credibility,” Justice David Brown wrote in his decision. 

“The interplay between public political protest and its impact on the community in which the protest takes place raises two fundamental questions,” he said. “How do we live together in a community? How do we share common space?”

Zexi Li, the main applicant and a local, earlier claimed that protesters physically intimidated her without citing evidence. She modified her story in 2022 testimony at the Public Order Emergency Commission.

“You never said anything with respect to protesters or truckers threatening to physically harm anyone?” asked counsel for the Freedom Convoy. “I did not make that statement,” replied Li.

“I was harassed for wearing a mask,” she clarified. “I was told to smile more under my mask — just these kinds of comments.”

According to pollster Angus Reid, over half (51%) of Canadians perceived the convoy as a national security threat despite no evidence of violence by protesters.

Ottawa-Centre MP Yasir Naqvi also described protesters as inherently violent. “My community has not forgotten that,” he said. “We’re investing in … the parliamentary district so that we don’t live through that ever again.”

Public Safety Minister David McGuinty confirmed federal funds last Friday to support Ottawa police patrolling the Parliament Hill area, as reported by the Ottawa Citizen.

Over the next three years, 49 civilian and sworn employees will be staffed as part of a new Parliament district policing team, taking over policing responsibilities from the Parliamentary Protective Service beyond Parliament Hill, specifically on Wellington Street.

“We need to jealously safeguard and secure the right to protest and the right to visit and the right to be there,” McGuinty said during the announcement. “That’s a fundamental element of our democracy.”

Thousands of concerned citizens, including truck drivers and freedom advocates, protested pandemic lockdowns along Wellington Street in January and February 2022. The demonstration was brought to a violent end following the invocation of the Emergencies Act on February 14, which was later ruled to be unconstitutional.

In 2024, a federal judge ruled that cabinet's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, stating that political demonstrations are inherently disruptive by nature.

“While parked trucks obstructing the roads and blaring horns are not ‘high value’ speech the regulations did not simply prohibit this conduct, which was already illegal under provincial and municipal law, but criminalized the attendance of every single person at those protests regardless of their actions,” wrote Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley.

However, the Appeal Court’s decision clarified: “We are not unconstrained free actors but must all live subject to some rules.” The federal government filed an appeal last February, and the matter remains before the courts.

Meanwhile, Ottawa resident and Supreme Court Chief Justice, Richard Wagner, likened protesters to anarchists and hostage takers in a 2022 interview, reported Blacklock’s. Then-housing minister Sean Fraser went further, comparing the demonstrations to the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“What we saw on Wellington Street here was the beginning of anarchy where certain people decided to take other citizens hostage, to take the law into their own hands,” said Chief Justice Wagner.

Nathalie Carrier, executive director of a local Vanier Business Improvement Association, testified that the police chief told her he was “scared” the convoy would turn into a Canadian version of the Capitol riot.

“I remember the Chief saying at one point, ‘You guys are scared, I get it, I’m scared too,’” testified Carrier at the Public Order Emergency Commission. “And I thought, if the Chief of Police is scared something much bigger is happening here than a protest.” 

“That personally scared me and I think a lot of us on that call were shaken.”

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