Should Politicians Comment on Judicial Decisions?
thoughts about the far right and their insistence that Poilievre comment on the Lich-Barber verdict and the Ontario Crown Prosecutors’ request for sentencing
“That's the only issue. That's … the only issue before me … there's nothing here in any of the materials that say that there's the right of movement has been infringed … it's just the noise, that's it. And I'm not gonna get into anything else because … I'm not asked to.” — Justice Hugh McLean, Court File No. CV-22-00088514-00CP, pp. 39-40
Before I get into the background of this case, I’ll tell you my answer to the question: NO. Politicians should not comment on judicial decisions, it’s inappropriate. It compromises the independence of the judiciary and it weakens separation of powers. More on that later. First, some background on the Freedom Convoy.
The Freedom Convoy and the prosecution of the movement’s leaders, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, has divided the country in a way I haven’t seen before. It’s become as contentious to discuss as religion or Israel versus Palestine geopolitics. It’s quite difficult to have balanced and reasonable discussion about the Freedom Convoy and the judicial process that followed. Canadians have very strong and deeply emotionally rooted feelings about the Freedom Convoy. A full three years after the fact, the wounds have not healed, the hurt screams and the trauma has entrenched itself firmly in the discourse — on both sides.
I think each side of the battle involving the Draconian COVID-19 Mandates and the Freedom Convoy (F/C) Occupation of Ottawa failed and refuses to try to understand the hardship experienced by their opponents.
On one side we have the forced MRNa injections, the dehumanisation of anyone opposed to receiving these injections peddled as vaccines, the moralisation of masking to the point of elevating them from infection control to niqab status, the denial of discomfort and harm from masking and forced injections, the refusal to consider scientific evidence regarding masking and the principles of infection control, the isolation and hastened death of seniors in care facilities, the damage to mental wellbeing by shelter-in-place restrictions and the societal-wide shutdown of social gatherings. On the other side we have the obnoxious occupation of downtown Ottawa by truckers and their allies from across Canada, the noise level from truck and rail and air horns, from constant idling of the large truck engines, the intimidation of residents who encountered blockaded entry to their homes and businesses, who met lengthy disruptions in their commutes to work, who faced loss of income from negative impacts on their businesses, who endured day and night high levels of noise that felt tantamount to torture and that severely disrupted concentration, who endured the fumes from the diesel exhaust and the environmental effects of homes and businesses.
Reader, both sides have valid concerns about the hardship they suffered at the hands of their perceived opponents. Let’s face it, F/C proponents felt angry at Covid-19 Mandate proponents (Pandemicists) for the trauma of the pandemic. Pandemicists felt angry at F/C proponents for the trauma of the occupation of Ottawa. F/C people think Pandemicist people narcissistic and intolerably controlling and unreasonable communist-types. Pandemicist people think F/C people selfish, insensitive, far right, boorish MAGA-types.
The Trudeau regime exploited the divide for political advantage and invoked the federal emergency act unnecessarily in order to shut down a situation it saw no other way to control. In the aftermath the court (see Mosley ruling) has questioned the decision to invoke a federal emergency. The radical Globe and Mail opinion of Mark Carney (advisor to Trudeau that time) to label F/C people seditious and the government overreach in freezing bank and fundraising accounts only added fuel to the terrible fire destroying national unity.
However, when the amygdala gets bigger the prefrontal cortex goes offline and we get stupid, anger and outrage literally makes humans stupid. During the election I wrote about Carney’s role in the shut down of funds.
“In fact, it would seem the February 2nd, 2022 actions of the payment platform themselves, the pausing of the funds to review ToS, (as opposed to anything Carney suggested), triggered the government to take the authoritarian steps it did vis a vis Emergency Act. Short of a smoking gun that directly connects Carney to the decision by Trudeau and his band of white collar thugs we call his cabinet ministers, we cannot link him to the declaration of an Emergency.” — The Antidote to Bullsh1t, dated April 4, 2025
There’s no solid smoking gun evidence that Carney’s opinion piece had much influence on how things played out regarding the measures taken to stop the protest. Stripe decided before the publication of the opinion piece to freeze the fundraising accounts. Four days after the Globe published Carney’s opinion piece an Ontario Superior Court Justice issued the restraint order for Stripe to pause the fundraising accounts.
You can see some excerpts from the Mosley ruling below.
As I wrote in April, we can all agree the freezing of bank and fundraising accounts went beyond reasonable measures. We probably can agree that parking your big rigs or anything on a public through-fare and protest, as the Convoy did, does meet a threshold of disturbing the peace. We can feel uncomfortable about using the CSIS act to stop a protest. We can question the legitimacy of the Emergency declaration — particularly in light of the ongoing and unchecked present-day violence targeting Jewish neighbourhoods, schools, community centres, and synagogues. According to Justice Mosley the Trudeau regime didn’t meet the legal threshold required to invoke a federal emergency as it did. Cato agreed.
So, reader, that’s a serious violation the government committed in order to stop a protest that devolved into a mischievous occupation of downtown Ottawa. It became a city-wide emergency for Ottawa. The province of Ontario declared an emergency. It wasn’t a national emergency though.
As Justice Mosley noted, the government overreach measures taken by the Trudeau regime simply increased the severity and spread of anti-government extremism. The F/C people already believed the government had seriously violated their personal freedoms by the Covid restrictions it imposed. The invocation of a national emergency and freezing of funds simply entrenched that belief. I find the hostility and resentment of the F/C people understandable. I don’t agree with the obnoxious manner in which they punished the people of Ottawa in expressing their grievance about Covid mandates. I don’t endorse the grievance culture that’s emanated from this discourse.
I understand the anger of the Pandemicists and citizens of Ottawa at the F/C people. 85 decibels in your apartment all day long, 120 decibels on the ground all day long — that’s abusive behavior. Decibel Pro indicates that at around 90 decibels you feel like you have a dance club in your home, and at around 130 decibels you feel pain. Sounds at or above 85 decibels cause damage to the hearing.
Reader, did you know that sound can serve as a torture device? Sound torture comes under the No-Touch Torture umbrella. Music serves as the most common form of sound torture, sleep deprivation another one. I think 12 hours+ of very loud truck or air or rail horns could definitely qualify as sound torture. I think the constant noise of the occupation of the city centre could induce sleep deprivation. I don’t doubt that many residents directly affected by the F/C occupation suffered torture and have residual trauma as a result. Combined with the intimidation and perception of blockading building and parkade entry points and disrupting freedom of movement, I can understand the anger of the resident Pandemicists who had to endure the occupation of their neighbourhood.
F/C proponents might accuse Ottawa residents of exaggerating their claims of hardship from the occupation of their downtown. Similarly, Pandemicists might accuse F/C people of exaggerating their claims of hardship. Then we find ourselves at an impasse, don’t we, reader? I wasn’t in Ottawa when the F/C descended on the city, and so I can only take the reports I read and hear at their word. As I expect people to take my retrospective reports and observations of the impact Pandemic restrictions at their word. Hillel described the Torah on one foot as don’t do to another what you hate done to you. Jesus preached do unto others as you wish them to do unto you. Reader, these are two sides of the coin!
It’s probably true that many Canadians find themselves somewhere in the middle of these two polar opposites, and don’t much understand the big fuss. They just want the song that never ends to end already. Can we just get over it? We would all like to move past that to more pressing concerns. Well, reader, apparently we cannot. Why can’t we?
So, that’s a lot of background, reader! Let’s get back to the titular question.
Should politicians comment on trial verdicts? What do you think about the rage baiters and outrage junkies who got their pitchforks out in mob fashion to demand that Pierre Poilievre comment on the Lich-Barber trial?
Reader, I think it underscores a problem in the conservatives camp, it’s why they won’t win any elections, it’s why they don’t have the trust of Canadians to govern. A core group of vocal and influencial conservatives behave like a mob with pitchforks and they apply the rules of law tribally, they dispense with integrity and choose emotional thinking.
Think about the separation of powers for a moment. Think about how politicians commenting on trial verdicts and sentencing would affect the separation of powers. Think about how it would influence the perception of influence and undermine the judiciary. Many Canadians already worry about a weakened separation of powers in Canada. We worry about progressivism and DEI undermining the judiciary. We suspect the judiciary suffers from a corruption of political interference. So, how would the Leader of the Official Opposition weighing in on the Lich-Barber trial and sentencing recommendations help the situation? How would it serve Canadians? It would not.
Remember the Gerald Stanley verdict? Remember Trudeau’s and Jody Wilson Raybauld’s decisions to weigh in? Remember the conservative reaction? They lost their sh1t, reader. According to Mcleans, 81% of Conservatives disapproved of Trudeau and JWR commenting on the Stanley verdict. Overwhelmingly Canadians didn’t approve of Trudeau and JWR weighing in on the Stanley verdict. Weird how conservatives don’t remember they didn’t like politicians commenting on trials. Weird how it’s necessary and morally right for the conservative leader to weigh in on a trial verdict that’s important to conservatives and it’s bad and wrong for the liberal leader to weigh in on a trial verdict that’s important for liberals, isn’t it?
“Michael Lacy, a partner in the criminal law group Brauti Thorning Zibarras LLP in Toronto, also said politicians “have no business at all” in commenting on the outcome of a trial.
“It undermines the independence of the judicial branch,” he said in an email.
“Saying anything that amounts to commenting on the correctness of the verdict, to improve your public image or ensure an appropriate approval rating, should be criticized in Canada,” Lacy said, adding public figures should stick to offering sympathies over the tragic loss of life.” — Toronto Star, 2018
I don’t think it’s rocket science, it’s pretty elementary when you think about it, reader.
“Acting lawfully is not the test for the rule of law. Instead, the rule of law restricts what government can do. The rule of law means, for example, that laws are knowable, transparent, generally applicable and “fixed and announced beforehand”, as Hayek put it in The Road to Serfdom. Rule by law, in contrast, is legal instrumentalism, where governments use laws as tools to manage their subjects and achieve desirable outcomes. The rule of law and rule by law are incompatible.” —Bruce Pardy, C2C, 24.05.2024
I’ll end this missive with one final point — the hypocrisy that tribalism invites into political discourse and the way it colours analysis. Consider the matter of protestors occupying public space (and any occupation of public spaces actually) and behaving abusively and obnoxiously blocking the right of others to use the space and move freely about during that occupation of public space. Think about the antisemitic encampments on campuses across Canada. Think even of the homeless encampments in cities across Canada. Think of open consumption of Schedule 1 drugs in public spaces. Conservatives as a rule oppose these kinds of occupations and abuses of public space. So, don’t you find it odd that this same core group of conservatives give an asshole pass to the F/C? What’s different? Nothing, really.
One last note to add to this missive. The Outrage groupies have noticed that Oumaima Chouay received one day of incarceration for her criminal offense of terrorism, on the request of crown prosecutors and the defense. The Outrage Mob compares this to the crown’s request for a 7 to 8 years sentence in the Lich-Barber case; we don’t know what the defense requested for the Lich-Barber sentence, and we’ll find out tomorrow. Here’s a fun fact to chew on, reader. Lawrence Greenspon represents/ed the Canadian ISIS members detained in Syria, he advocated for their repatriation and criticised the government for delaying the process. That includes Chouay. He also represents Tamara Lich.