Chris Barber
Chris Barber spoke 670 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Swear on the Bible, please.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Christopher John Barber, B-A-R-B-E-R.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Good morning.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I am; correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
All my life, 47 years.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That is correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Long haul, short haul. We haul agriculture equipment across the Prairies and into the United States.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I'm the business owner and a driver.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I employ my son and a couple other lease operators, contract employees.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Since I was 18, so just 28 years, roughly.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was contacted by Brigitte Belton, another social media follower, via the app TikTok. Communication started from there, speaking about possibly slow rolls to protest the mandates for the border crossing coming into effect January 15th for cross border travel for commercial vehicles.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe it was the beginning of January sometime, the dates might be fuzzy. January 8th, January 7th, somewhere in there.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
She's just another trucker, a cross-border driver that was facing her job to be lost on the 15th of January unless she complied with the mandates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Get involved to start something to try and speak out against the government going too far in some of these mandates?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The cross border travel, specifically.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
TikTok is an app, a social media app. Short videos under three minutes. My daughter got me into it about three, four years ago, approximately. I surpassed her in followers right away, so that made her quite anxious.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, I was on Facebook.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Prior to the convoy?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I would've guessed, roughly guessed at around 30,000, maybe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Quite significantly. We were up -- I don't know the numbers. There were 170,000, somewhere in there.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
A lot of trucking videos, hauling videos, just -- I'm generally a smart guy on social media, a lot of humour.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Angry. Very angry.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The mandates. The provincial mandates, the federal mandates that they just keep tossing more on. It seemed like it was just an overreach or over -- it just -- they went too far on a regular basis, and it was very frustrating.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We lost a lot of drivers. What freight I can't handle myself for my company I share with other fellow drivers and other company owners. We lost -- the government likes to say 10 percent of cross border drivers. I didn't see that, I seen it more 35 to 40 percent. We lost a lot of drivers, like a tremendous amount of drivers, where freight was backed up both sides of the border and caused some significant trouble.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The lack of the drivers getting the vaccination to be able to cross the border as of the 15th.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Personally? When the COVID vaccine passport came in it made things a little tricky. We weren't allowed to enter restaurants anymore. It was -- I trucked throughout the whole pandemic, I never stopped. I was eating in my truck. I had a coffee pot -- a coffeemaker in my truck. The restaurants were closed, gas stations were closed, bathrooms were closed. It was really tricky. I remember about two weeks into the pandemic thinking this isn't worth it and going home. And then the customer demands kept climbing, so I ended up -- I stayed.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I've spent the better part of 16 years running my company, keeping the big carriers away from my customer base, and I was at risk of losing all that hard work to not being able to cross the border anymore.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It's a small company, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah. Independent carriers, three trucks on my fleet, it's a lot harder to run a smaller company like that compared to the big companies. Most of my competition is up around the 200 -- 50 to 200 trucks.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did, Facebook, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Snapchat.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
A little bit on Instagram, I'd say, but not much.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Unfortunately, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
A troublemaker, online troublemaker.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, on TikTok I deal with trolls on a regular basis. They constantly attack me. Usually they’re faceless. Some of them you can see their profiles. I engage with them like I always have. I fight back and forth with them on a regular basis, and I’ve done that for many years.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
To speak my part, to do my part to protest. To try and get the government to start listening to us.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I primarily wanted the government to listen to our concerns.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The internet troll that I would like to be would constantly become banned for posting inappropriate things or things that went against community standards, so your punishment for that would be seven days -- three to seven days off the device, so you would log into another account.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. No. I’ve always ran a couple different accounts. Right now I think I post on three different accounts.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Discussions started. We then moved forward with planning. Other people, other members, other teams became involved really fast. We realized that there was -- there was a lot of support behind us the more we got into the logistics of it all.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Early discussions, Brigitte Belton and I, a male called Dave Steenburg, and with that, Brigitte introduced me to people like James Bauder with Canada Unity, Patrick King, online social media guy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was completely organic. Everything just literally fell right onto place. It was -- I believe it was about two weeks from the time we started talking about it to the time we actually left. It was extremely fast.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
All of us. There wasn’t one, necessarily, a leader. It was a group of organizers per se. We had people in every province that stepped up. We had helpers in every province that stepped up. We had helpers in every province. It was all -- everyone just came together.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, myself, Tamara Lich, Brigitte Belton, James Bauder and Patrick King.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Via social media, for the most part.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah. Tamara Lich and I were in contact I believe the middle of January. The specific date may be around the 13th, maybe the 10th. Tamara started a Facebook page and a Twitter account for Freedom Convoy 2022. And the word started to spread from there. We kept up on our TikTok videos. We all did Facebook lives. We all promoted it via our independent social media apps.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Very little. Very little.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Just little things on social media just getting the word out and finding out who was willing to help and who was coming to the parade.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe Ms. Lich was involved at that point. I believe that she was busy that night and could not attend that, if my memory serves me right.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I have, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Can I add -- I can add that Canada Unity became involved, and Canada Unity was actually planning -- I learned later they were planning some sort of a route across Canada to Ottawa for a protest. They had the stops and everything already planned. They had a web site ready. They had -- everything was all in place, to my recollection.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe through Brigitte Belton.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, sir. No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, I was not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I reviewed the video just a couple days ago, and I remembered again. He just -- I believe he just explained how the document worked and that it had already been sent to the government -- Governor-General and to the government, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe I just -- I ignored it. I don’t know. I wasn’t into that sort of thing.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not to my knowledge. To this day, I still have yet to read the Memorandum of Understanding. I have no clue what’s in the document and I will never read it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, I did not. Like I said before, it was a matter of a whole bunch of different groups coming together at the perfect timing and having that input into the planning of it, and everyone had their piece. And we were so unorganized for the most part, we used whatever we could, whatever means, whatever tools we could find.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Same as myself. She was posting TikTok videos and promoting through her Facebook.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe the same thing. Patrick had a quite large following on social media, especially Facebook. So he promoted and did videos on his platform.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Via the Zoom call on the 13th, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't believe so. There might have been one in there earlier. I don't recall one personally.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't, sorry.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Just another helping hand, another person with a large following that could -- that would help.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not until -- no. Not until probably two days into the convoy itself.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes. I understand Patrick King had children that were unvaccinated, I believe, and Brigitte was the fact that she was going to lose her job on the 15th of January.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think I was just so excited and so overwhelmed right from the day one. I don't think I really had time. It was a very busy time.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There was different organizations that came and went. For the most part, we stayed as a close group, Tamara and myself, Brigitte. The core group of actual truckers stayed together. Organizations kind of came in, tried to set camp up and we either found a way to keep it under control or keep in the -- it was a power struggle a lot of the time.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, we had a little bit of conflict between Canada Unity, that was one, not necessarily conflict, but Taking Back our Freedoms was involved there. No conflict, but the war vets joined us. They were beside us the entire time. We had retired police officers, OPP.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Power control. Simple.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I didn't like the MOU, I believe, even though I still have yet to read it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I still believe that they were after the same things we were. I believe that maybe it was more mask mandates, more COVID restrictions in general.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Improperly written MOU. According to the people that I spoke to about it, it wasn't something on our agenda. It wasn't something we were pushing for. It had nothing to do with the reason why we actually came to Ottawa.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Ms. Lich.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We had the same opinion.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can't speak for what Tamara said. I'm not sure if she's read it or not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
She wasn't ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I heard rumours about it being that way. I heard rumours on both sides that it could be interpreted that way and then it couldn't be interpreted that way. It was kind of a mixed.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not necessarily. We -- I remember calling on Mr. Bauder, having him renounce the MOU partial the way through the convoy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I do not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe it was Tamara that made the call. Just too much -- there was too much highlight in it. There was too much spotlight in this document that we didn't have anything to do with.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe it was rescind [sic]. I believe they removed it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
James was around. Not necessarily with him. He was around. We seen each other from time to time.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't know names. I know Roy and James were the ones that came out. They tried to help us out, create structure inside the meetings and the day- to-day planning.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
To this day, I do not. I believe mandate freedom, government gone too far.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
From times, yeah, there was, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I wasn't personally part of those. I found my role outside walking the streets a lot. So the inner meetings, I tended to skip out on quite a bit.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Ms. Lich called me on my cell phone, I believe, like I said, somewhere before the 10th of January, and told me she had a little bit of experience in the department of protesting and convoy. She was part of the 2019 United We Roll Tour. We needed help and I acknowledged that. It was just a phone call out of the blue. Tamara got my phone number and the friendship and continued.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
She said the name before. I don't remember what the name was. She -- a friend of a friend had my contact.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, I did.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oil and gas. I believe they came from Alberta to Ottawa protesting pipeline shutdowns or pipeline building, one of the two.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
She was involved with some of the…
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. Afterwards.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know about James.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, I had not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
She’s a mother, she’s a grandmother; she’s a regular Albertan, good hearted, strong person.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe I realized -- I was told about that in or out to Ottawa.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, it was Ms. Lich, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was not my -- no, I didn’t feel that at all.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know if I discussed it, but it wasn’t really an issue. We never discussed anything in detail. It was noted that she was part of that in the past. I believe she wasn’t -- I mean, I don’t think she was -- or she is now. She was, and it was never an issue after that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. It was never brought to my attention that they were a player in this situation. And that wasn’t the reason why we came to Ottawa; I would have fought that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That wasn’t the reason why we came to Ottawa. We came to Ottawa for mass -- or for, sorry, for border mandates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The tricky part was trying to get a solid number. There would be a certain amount of trucks, cars, buses, campers, that would come into the convoy for a short period of time, let’s say from Regina to Winnipeg, just to take part in it and would exit off, and at that same time more people would come in from Winnipeg to go to Kenora. I know for a fact some people left with their children in a semi from Saskatchewan planning on going to Regina and went home three weeks later. We ranged anywhere from 500 to 2,500 vehicles, is what I was told. Looking in the mirrors it was incredible to see the lights behind you and the long lines. And watching the videos, it was approximately 25 kilometres long at some times.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, not in my wildest dreams.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, there was a lot of tears.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Emotions, we’re -- the things that we seen out the windshield of the truck as we crossed the Prairies, and in Ontario, overwhelming support; people standing on the side of the highways, people lining overpasses. We were often late by around two hours; we were never really on schedule. And people stood in frigid temperatures, minus 20 to minus 30, just to get a chance to see us come through.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We had code of ethics, we had rules to follow, we had speeds to endure, we had constant communication on the -- either VHF FM radios or CB radios; cellphone interaction with other people too. Constant communication. Safety was number one priority. When you’re leading that many vehicles of the -- error was what could have been at any minute. So we managed to successfully make it from the West to Ottawa without a single issue, to my knowledge.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was at the lead of the pack. We had two escort pilot trucks leading us. Patrick King was in his motorhome halfway back looking after the back pack. It was just -- it was constant communication on the radio; constantly upping our speeds, lowering our speeds, trying to keep the convoy at a steady pace together. If I was going too fast, people would start to lag and there would be a distance. We would have to then slow down and catch everybody up.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. No, everything was well orchestrated. We had police communication right from -- my role began from Swift Current to Medicine Hat, Alberta, where I picked up Ms. Lich and joined the West convoy, and that was where my part started. We were in communication with -- the first police force would have been Medicine Hat. We were in contact with Swift Current, Regina, Moosejaw, all the way across the country for -- for police escorts. If there was a traffic light, we actually called for traffic control at those intersections so we could proceed through the intersections safely.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know his last name, his name was Marty, he met us at the West Hawk scale which is the scale that borders Ontario and Manitoba. He met us there; he jumped out in front and led us. I believe Marty follow -- or led us, I believe, to Thunder Bay’ish area where then he got us in Kenora, he led us downtown Kenora to the rec centre parking lot where we were -- where we staged for the evening. We had a funny story -- not a funny story, but coming into Headingly, Manitoba, the Hutterite communities from around the Winnipeg area came into Headingly with food trailers. They had hot food, burgers, everything you could think of. RCMP had called me and said the amount of people in the Headingly area was too great; it was a huge risk to safety to get in and out of the parking lot for the truck stop. So we had to abandon the plan to stop. So we carried on around Winnipeg, and three Hutterite vehicles with trailers followed us to Kenora and fed us in the parking lot at the rec centre that night. It was cold as can be and they had the barbeques out and the slow cookers; it was quite amazing.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Contact was made with, I believe her name was Isabelle, from OPS. Isabelle was in constant contact with, I believe Chris Garrah of Adopt a trucker, and things were planned on our arrival.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I spoke with Isabelle a few times on the phone. I’ve met her once on the ground here. I didn’t have a lot of logistics with Isabelle, that was already being looked after.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe I did. I made contact with Isabelle but I’m not sure exactly when. There was a phone call made to say, “I’m Chris, here’s my contact.”
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Exactly what it was. We were there to protest border mandates, and our main priority was safety and working with law enforcement, whatever it took.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think the discussion started after the first weekend with OPS, I believe, and we had one -- a couple of OPP officers in constant contact too, I know his name was Andrew.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know if I ever really thought much into it. Everything moved so fast when we arrived.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, my business would suffer the longer I was away from it. So that in the back of my mind -- I really didn’t know. It was the movement of its own and it continued to grow, and you mentally had to try and keep up with it, I guess.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Interesting story: All the way to Ottawa, my understanding via people in the convoy, Canada Unity, was that we had two major staging areas; one was Major Hill Park, and the other one was Confederate Park. I believe Confederate. And that was -- to my understanding, that’s where we were allowed to park and protest peacefully.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We had a police escort down Sir John A. Macdonald off the 417. My understanding -- I didn’t know this till afterwards -- police blocked the convoy after myself and another tractor-trailer went through. They shut the convoy down around the War Museum on Sir John A. Macdonald. They then led myself and Tamara and the pilot trucks. We made it to roughly the Supreme Court on Wellington, and that was as far as we could go. There was a ton of vehicles had come in the night before, apparently, wanting to be there for the arrival. So there had already been tractor-trailers lined up in front of Parliament down to, approximately, the Supreme Court.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was unaware of it. My understanding was we were going to come in, the police were going to escort us right to the two parks. We would park safely out of the way, and it would be fine.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe not, no. I don’t know if I ever asked that question.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Apparently, we caught them off guard; we overwhelmed them right off the bat. With the trucks coming in the night before that we were unaware of, our main convoy, as far as I know, had nothing to do with those prior arrivals, so...
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They were all semi operators. I knew a couple from my home province. They were in the area, apparently. They weren’t part of the convoy, but they were in the area, and they took part in the protest.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know if I really had time to think if it was a surprise, it was so fast-paced.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That’s a hard question to answer. I believe they did the best they could. The scope of the amount of vehicles that came in, I don’t know how things went so -- went so wrong when we first arrived. We were -- they did what they could. They did the best we could. We were all -- 90 percent of the trucks were stuck out on Sir John A. Macdonald, I believe, with -- pretty much abandoned. Nobody knew where to go, nobody had direction.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oh, absolutely.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, if the staging areas we were allowed to take, Major Hills Park and Confederate Park, I understand now that that was never part of the deal, apparently. Although, I don’t know; that was all I was told.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We would have been off the main streets. Occupying or parking all over the city was never part of why we came.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oh.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I apologize.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe the first episode was a CBC article, came out of some past prior social media posts that Pat had been a part of, and we met with Pat, discussed our concerns. I believe we smoothed the waters over, and we carried on at that point.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t really -- I never read the article. There was something about something Pat said years ago. According to Pat, the article was edited or what he said was edited. I can’t confirm or deny that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
This -- the article was made to sound like bullets would be flying, apparently. According to Mr. King, when we confronted him on it he stated that the article was taken out of context, edited to make him sound like he was planning violence, where I believe his -- what he was trying to convey in that article was different than what was portrayed by the media.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was -- according to what I was told, that was a previous post, two years prior, something to do with an Indigenous standoff.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I recall something about that, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe it might have been after.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Possibly division inside the convoy Pat brought a certain following with. I don't remember the extent of anything after that. We discussed sending him home, and obviously he didn't.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That would have been a good guess, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We had road captains involved in -- approximately two road captains per province to organise the trucks. Those were the people that the people from that province could go to with concerns or issues. So we had a number of road captains within the convoy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Possibly. I wasn't involved in that conversation.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not to my recollection, I don't.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, he did.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe whatever happened it worked itself out to the point where Pat stayed with the convoy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't believe it was a concern. He explained to me that it was taken out of context, and then edited to make him sound worse than it was. I took him for his word on it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe Pat had all the right reasons and a good heart.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
My phone was very busy. I'm assuming it's here, so it had to be.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can't. I'm not sure.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The best thing about the movement was it was inclusive to everyone regardless of any beliefs, I guess. Everyone had a place, everybody had a spot. It was just managing how.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I guess. Pat and I had a power struggle between each other, that was pretty evident right from day one. It was just -- it was a power struggle back and forth over control. It wasn't anything that couldn't have been managed.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I guess there would've been some concerns at times, I guess. The bad media posts and releases on a regular basis definitely caused some concern.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The media.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They attacked him on a regular basis I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I didn't know. I didn't -- like I said, I didn't know Pat previous to the convoy. I met him on the 13th for the first time, and things were so busy after that it was hard to keep your head around all the different moving parts.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
My primary goal was to get those trucks to Ottawa safely. So phone conversations and that were hard to have. Everything that we did was logistics. It was myself on the mic, on the CB mic or the FM radio mic, all day long making sure the trucks were safe. I kind of left that up to other people in the organisation.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, I've been -- like I've said before, I've been an internet troll for many years.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Nothing that was related to the convoy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I used to post nasty, distasteful memes, be it share memes or just posting online in a negative way.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, they'd been circulated for quite sometime.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, I can honestly say that if anybody learned anything or grew more during the convoy it was me. I was a different person nine months ago, whatever it was, ten months ago. Coming out here and seeing the amount of love and the people of all different colours, all different race, everything, it was such a diverse crowd of people here. There was -- so there was so many tears, there was so many hugs, there was so much laughter, there was so much -- it was -- it changed a person, it changed me.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It just -- it humbled me, I guess. It made me realise that a lot of those stuff that I used to post on the internet before was very distasteful, and there's a better way to do it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe there's two different contexts to look at the Confederate flag. I've got a good friend that lives outside of Atlanta, Georgia. She's an African American lady. I had a in-depth conversation with her many times on this occasion. She's explained it to me quite well. She said the way the -- the two different contexts, how you look at the flag, was the area of the General Lee and the Dukes of Hazard via, like, Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd music. When we grew up in our hometown, we had -- we called it a rebel flag or a dixie flag. We didn't really call it a Confederate flag. It was on license plates. It was on back windows. It was everywhere. And at that time, it was more accepted apparently. So in my travels in the deep south years ago, I'd come across a flag store. I seen the dixie flag there. I purchased it. I hung it up on the wall in my shop not thinking anything of it. My African American lady friend in Georgia explained to me that if you wore that flag over your shoulders to a Confederate battlefield, I would probably call you a lot of names. But she said, being the way you're displaying it now and the fact that you loved your childhood watching the Dukes of Hazard and seeing that flag on the roof of the General Lee, it's a different context.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
What I did with the flags in the shop was I zip tied them. So they were hanging on the wall of the shop. I went up on a ladder and I zip tied them together. They're still there, but they're not displayed in the correct manner, out of respect for ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That would be, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, I hardly seen James the time I was here.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Same as myself. She was more centralized around the hotel area where we had our daily meetings, making sure things were looked after. My job morphed into more of a outside walking the streets, making sure the trucks were well looked after, making sure the concerns were well, working with the law enforcement on a day-to-day basis, making sure that we had emergency lanes open wherever the trucks were parked. We had a couple different hot spots -- not hot spots, but places in the city that we had -- we'd lost -- we couldn't get the emergency lanes open, and they weren't -- looking back now, they weren't the trucks that came with us from the west. The one issue was Rideau and Sussex. We spent many days down trying to get an emergency lane open, with law enforcement, OPP and OPS.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Just difference of opinions.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't even -- just difference of opinion, different direction. I just chose to stay on a path. My criminal charges have left me to be a lot more silent. I can't speak with, like, what I used to be able to speak about the convoy. I'd rather remain silent. So I've - - instead of fighting with anybody there, I've said my peace and went my different ways.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. (VIDEO PLAYED)
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We had the public on our support. That was -- and I'll apologise for the language there, Commissioner. That was another thing that I've worked on in the last number of months. Look at ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That's good. You can take the trucker out of the truck but you -- that was, yeah, most important because we had -- the world was watching us. We had -- there was so many people and safety was utmost. And we were told leave by -- the lawyers flew out, I believe it was the end of the month, the first part of February, something like that, and we were told by the lawyers on the daily basis that we were legitimate protest. We were allowed to be there. We were doing the right things. And the last thing I wanted to do was wreck that for the people that we were trying to represent. And there was a ton of support all across -- all over the world really.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I'll give you a little example of truck drivers. They're like herding cats. They -- you've got every different style of driver, and I've always said, you put 200 truck drivers in a room and somebody's going to get a black eye and a broken nose. But -- and knowing that going into it, I was worried about that because of the differences of opinion with all truck drivers. I can honestly say that that was something that surprised me. There was none of that. The drivers were well -- and in my -- what I seen, they were extremely well behaved. They listened to the rules of the road. I didn't have a single incident with, to my recollection, with that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe it was loud, but it was peaceful.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe the federal government was backed into a corner, not wanting to speak to us. And I personally believe that that was the only way, I guess, out of it for them, to demonize us to the point where they could say insurrection when that wasn't the case. And so I pushed that message constantly, daily, peace, love, community. Like I said, it changed with me as a person listening to myself daily saying that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The police build-up. We had daily meetings with police, whether it be OPP or OPS, and everything was positive, but it seemed like the police presence built on a daily basis.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not that I seen, no. The trucks that I looked after on a day-to-day basis were all -- were excited. They were excited. We were two years outside of a -- of lockdowns and mandates and people got to live again. And we seen that on a daily basis.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Basically, that was it. Yes, there was a code of -- I don’t remember if we actually did a code of conduct up or not or we just -- mornings we had tailgate safety meetings with the drivers to make sure that everything was well. There was constant communication with everything. I had no concerns with the trucks. The trucks were always well behaved and, like I said, law enforcement was always open and honest. We did -- we worked really well with every law enforcement that I ever spoke to.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I took it upon myself to do everything in my power to make sure that the drivers were notified if things weren’t right. I can’t say it was my responsibility. I don’t -- I can’t act on behalf of someone else. But I definitely did what I could to try and make sure things were done properly.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Just the sheer size of it and the support. We had support, like I said, all over the country, all over the world, and there was so many people watching. It was -- it was exciting to see the general public -- and one of the biggest things for me it was exciting to see the young kids get back involved with trucks, that were excited for the horn honk, the -- standing on the side of the highway. Kids wanted to be truck drivers again, and I haven’t seen that since I was a child.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They always -- they seemed to respect. I dealt with quite a few on a daily basis, and I can’t -- I can’t say I had a harsh conversation or anything with any of them. Maybe -- police were always respectful. I would walk up to random officers standing on the side of the -- of the street and just -- or sitting in a police car patrolling the barricade and say, “Everything okay? Have you seen anything that was a concern?”. And I never once -- once got a reaction bad.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Disrespectful. Not -- not playing by the code of conduct or the rules.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Being disruptive, I guess. Like I said, we tried on a daily basis to make sure everybody was looked after. So the police had free lanes through, through all. Ambulances had free lanes. I know it was pretty tricky. We worked diligently on it. I lost about 20 pounds in the matter of three weeks with the amount of walking I did working with law enforcement. I didn't -- I had a vehicle here, but it was hard to get around with a vehicle, so a lot of times it was walking. And it was frigid. It was 20 to 30 below. I had two t-shirts on, two hoodies on and long underwear and three pairs of socks at times.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Personally I didn’t, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That’s fair.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I never seen -- like I said, I never seen anything that really concerned me. If somebody was there that wasn’t part of the original group that I brought in, I would try really hard to negotiate with them or work with them to open that lane if they were parked in a spot that wasn’t where it should have been. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes it wasn’t. I really struggled a lot with, like I said before, when it comes to all truckers are different. That dynamic really played in certain parts of the city where ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was a negative light from day one. They -- they -- yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Everything. I had numerous occasions where people came up to me and said they had to come down and see it for themselves because the media wasn’t portraying it properly. And it was a different thing when they got here.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can honestly say I never encountered a single episode of that. Obviously there was fires for people trying to stay warm. There was -- there was propane tanks for heating things no different than -- I have a propane tank on my porch with a -- with a portable barbecue, so as long as it was looked after safely, I guess.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We left things up to the road captains. Like I said, there was usually two road captains per province (sic), but that morphed into usually a couple road captains per block, and we would hold -- not myself personally. I stayed out of most of those meetings, but the people would hold meetings every day to go over certain things and issues and safety concerns.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I considered the horn honking to be a form of excitement more than peaceful protest. I’ll be the first to admit the horns annoyed me. I did everything in my power to try and get the horns to stop. I put out multiple videos on a regular basis saying stop, especially after the Court order came in on, I believe -- whatever date that was, the 7th.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Speaking to the drivers. It was getting everyone orientated, trying to get them situated in a place where they were safe and their needs could be met, I guess, seeing as our entry was –- was so messed up. I'll use the words. It was organized chaos, unorganized chaos. There was trucks everywhere. There was vehicles everywhere. The only thing I could do was put my videos out stating, you know, like, we're not here to disrupt residents of Ottawa. They didn't ask for this. It was -- the federal government is why we came and did what we could.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. (VIDEO PLAYBACK)
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Do you get an idea of what kind of guy I am on social media by that?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, that's me being a funny guy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It is.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It's my name. Like I said, things were so busy, I'm assuming I -- I shared that one, obviously. I would have probably shared the first one too. It was scrolling Facebook and seen it and just hit the share button. That was probably more, like, found it humorous at the time, I guess.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can't take back what I posted. I guess it was the excitement of the day on social media, flipping through social media, and seeing the post, and it's a click of a button to share it and put it out. Seeing it now, I'd say it's distasteful.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was more than four, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Forty (40), yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, sure.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We made an attempt, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was successful with one truck. There was -- if there's -- there was a little -- it was a tractor trailer. He was parked near right by the war memorial. I remember the story on the -- he was parked sideways across the compete intersection. And law enforcement had tried to get him to straighten his truck out for quite some time and failed at it miserably. I remember it was easy. I walked over to the truck. I stepped up on the running board and I said, "Hey, Buddy, you're in the way really bad and you're causing us some grief. Could you just back it up against the curb, please, and you'll save us all a lot of trouble?" And he literally put the truck in gear and backed it up against the -- the OPP and the OPS officers were amazed it was that easy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Was not, no. Those were a different group there. It was harder to talk to them.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I remember there being a language barrier. There was a lot of Quebecers in that corner, right in the Rideau Sussex corner, so that -- yeah, I didn't have much interaction. I remember being there maybe twice to try and work something out, to get some lanes open, as per OPS and OPP's asking. I wasn't successful every time.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They were there, and they just refused to move. So I did what I could. I worked with law enforcement. I -- maybe it was twice Ms. Lich and I were there with OPS one day and I believe I was there by myself with OPS on a separate time. So probably twice I was there.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was not, no.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
About a week ago, under a week ago.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. I understand it means leprechaun in French -- or in English, apparently. It was according to ---
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
More than me, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't believe I was -- I don't believe so. If there was messages on my phone, they would be for people with no contact information, just phone numbers. I received so many text messages from so many different people. I don't want to say that I didn't because I may have. I never endorsed it. I never communicated openly with anybody from Windsor at all.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
If anybody asked me, I declined. We were never associated. We had our own -- we had enough to deal with here. We weren't worried about ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I got text messages from some friends at Coutts. Never any -- just saying how things were going. Never any advice or never asked any questions to my recollection. They had their own thing going on there and it wasn't involved with us in the city here.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There's a couple guys that were down there. Just some local drivers that I've been friends with for years.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
One man his name is Dan Sommerville. He was off and on. He was never an active participant. He went down just to check it out and come back. There was another guy, I don't know his name. I'd have to look at my phone. I know what truck he drives. I know what he hauls.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think he was just a participant, yeah. I don't know the organizers at Coutts or Windsor.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I would imagine text messages on my phone but not people that I'm familiar with.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did not, no.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I became aware of Mr. MacKenzie during the protest. Just know that he was veteran. We did a lot of work with the veterans when we were here, although I never seen Jeremy, that I know of. I met a lot of people during, but I don't recall meeting him or seeing him, or I've never spoke with him.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, not -- sorry. Not during the protest. Afterwards. My knowledge of Diagolon, it's a fictional -- it's a meme. It's -- it was something that Jeremy made up to troll, online troll.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I have not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, my bank accounts were frozen I believe on the day I was arrested, on February 17th. My corporate accounts as well as my joint accounts were frozen for the weekend, unfrozen, I believe, the Monday. My Toronto Dominion Bank account was frozen for upwards of three-and-a-months.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I learned how to use cash again.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They -- I guess they kind of caught us off guard. They were really professional and really good to work with, I can't say a bad thing about anyone. I was walking with my son and three other of the road captains. So if you Google my name on the arrest you'll see a photo of my grinning. My son was there, he was 18 years old at the time, and I looked over at him and seen him -- that look he had as a 6-year-old or a 7-year-old kid where, you know, the tears were welling up. He was scared. And -- so I simply just said, "Hey, Bud, you're good", and grinned like that, and they caught me on camera, of course. And everything's been good since, it's just it's changed quite a bit.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, the criminal charges now, and I've never had criminal charges. I've never been in trouble with the law before.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We touched all the bases. The truth is here, I have nothing to hide. As far as I know, we were doing everything within the law, according to legal counsel, and that was my main primary goals.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Good morning.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Mr. Gibbs.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was my personal sole objective, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Quite possibly, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There was a lot going on, but yes, for the most part.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
My understanding when it comes to the MOU, and I think that was the only thing that ever came up, was the fact that there was something in the MOU that said, and not necessarily overthrow, but hold the government accountable, apparently. I -- and like I've said before, I've never read the MOU. That was never anything that we came to Ottawa for. That was not even on the cards, and if anybody came to me stating that I would've probably told them to go home.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, correct.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
He could've, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Possibly.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can't speak for Mr. King, but possibly.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I guess so. I stayed with my original beliefs of the border mandates. That was the one that affected me the most, that was the reason why I got involved. All the other mandates in place that I had issues were provincial mandates. So really, had no relevance here in Ottawa.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
But some people in the group seemed to think they did.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I guess so. Like I said, I can only speak for myself, and my primary goal was border mandates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't recall that.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, correct.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We did not. This was a purely organic...
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, pretty much so.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Primarily, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oh, many. Like I said, there would've been 2,500 vehicles in the West convoy. There was convoys from the East, convoys from the South, there was convoys... I don't know the numbers on how many people were here. There was a lot. On the weekends, it was very, very busy. It was very busy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely, I could not control them all.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I had a -- yeah, it was a billboard sign I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't remember. It's hanging on the wall in my shop right now, but it's something about mandates I would imagine. I don't remember. If you could refresh my memory if you have it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. I didn't have a -- on the back of the bunk of the truck I have a decal there that says that. I did not have a flag on my tractor that had that on it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, a smaller decal up on the back of the bunk.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was surprised to see how many it was. Yeah, there was a lot. All the way across the country, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think it was just that, as far as I remember.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’ve seen a better rendition of it the other day. By the way, my thoughts have kind of changed on that a little bit. I seen a young kid a couple of days ago that said hi to me and he had a “Truck Trudeau” shirt on.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
But probably a little more politically correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I would assume.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was a child that had it, so...
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, it did. Of course.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
He was always Canada Unity. I don’t believe he was ever part of Freedom Convoy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
He was ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
He was separate, yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. I believe so.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I heard about it, yes. I don’t think I ever -- I’m not sure if I ever seen it or not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
He did, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. I believe the second part of that video -- my understanding with that was that that was from a previous post, something to do with Indigenous lockdowns or Indigenous protests somewhere else in the country, where that bullet comment came from.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was, yes, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Regretfully so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
On the TikTok I do, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Mr. King, I believe, due to his conditions isn’t allowed on social media.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
At the time I think he had a significant following on Facebook. I don’t think he was on TikTok.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Apparently, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not very often, no. My job was literally out with the trucks on a regular basis. I would come sit in at the end of the day and have conversations with other people in the group to get -- but I don’t remember being -- I remember being at the first news conference. I remember telling Ms. Lich that I didn’t want to be the one in front of the camera, but I would be the one that stood beside the one at the camera, and that was the only time I was -- I think I did a couple, but I was always sitting off to the side. My job was truck safety, truck issues; making sure everybody was looked after.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, fuel, mechanics, if any issues arose. Working with the police, that was my -- my main job was working with law enforcement.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That I can’t ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It could have. I don’t really remember reading any of them.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’d noted that was my personal mandate.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was myself. I don’t speak for everyone on the group. So I didn’t have anything to do with these drafts on a daily basis. I was -- I was purely here for the mandates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’m not even sure who produced these on a daily basis. I can’t speak to that. I -- like I said, I was out -- I literally got out of bed at 7 o’clock in the morning every morning, if not earlier, and was out with the trucks the ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
--- sorry -- the entire day. I was -- I was on the ground the entire time. At the end of the day, if something urgent arose, I didn’t take part in any of these updates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Agreed, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That could be contested. I’m not sure. I -- yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Could have been, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’ve seen it on social media before. I didn’t -- like I said, I never read this document, so I don’t know what would be in it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Via social media posts. More so in the last six months. I don't recall seeing that or even hearing about it at the time.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I've never read it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I do, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Again, I had nothing to do with this document, so it would have been inside the meetings, I would assume.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That is.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Correct.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I have not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Unequivocally, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was not aware of that, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That's where I spent a lot of time on the ground. I spent a lot of time working with people that were with the original convoy from the west and with people who were not with the west. If somebody had a concern, I said it on more than one occasion on my videos, if anybody has a problem, if anybody wants to yell at somebody, find my number and phone me and yell at me. I will gladly take it. The last thing I ever wanted was a letter like that. I had never -- I haven't heard that story up until now.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Agreed, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’m not sure of his role, but yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’m assuming so, yes. It looks like.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
So to my recollection, we moved approximately 100 vehicles out of the downtown core on that February 15th, 40 of which were tractors, semi units. And apparently approximately 23 were moved up onto Wellington in the one block.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They moved out of town. They would have went to -- out exit -- we called that Exit 88, Armoire or Antrim ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Antrim?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Antrim -- there’s two different ones and I always get confused with which one it was. It was the one on the East side of town anyway, so...
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely. So February 14th, we had a meeting at City Hall with Kim and Drummond, and I believe Steve, if I’m not correct?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes. We left that meeting excited, ready to go out. We’d had an agreement that we were going to move as many trucks as we could out of the residential area, up on Wellington. Myself and three other road captains who were close with me went out and started speaking with the drivers, trying to figure out who was ready to move -- sorry; who was ready to move first thing Monday morning, who we could count on, and where we could get them to move. So 7 o’clock in the morning, rolled around Monday morning, February 15th, and we struggled with communication between police, City, and ourselves, as to who allowed the move. So we were on at 7:00 a.m. It was roughly, I’m thinking about 12:30, after lunch before the first police car actually moved and we were allowed to move. So my understanding, we had 72 hours to get as many vehicles out of the downtown core as possible. Something broke down, it was out of my control. We got as many trucks as we could that day, and I remember it was cold, and I -- at the end of the day I was -- I was wore out; I was done. It was a lot of walking; it was a tremendous amount of walking. Something happened at the end of the day, there was a breakdown. I believe Chief Sloly resigned. Something happened where the deal was off the table, and we were -- we were done. So I did everything in my power. We had so many more places on Wellington, we were -- we could have put more trucks. We mapped everything out, we had guys who were ready to move. We ran out of time in the day, on the Monday. And then planned to continue moving on the Tuesday. And, like I said, something fell apart; we were done.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
My communication was with Nicole with OPS, and she’d explained to me that we had our chance -- I don’t remember how; my text messages are at the police station. But we had our chance, and we didn’t accomplish what we agreed to do, and the deal was off the table.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was different from what my understanding of what the day was. Where things fell apart, I still yet to understand.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Good morning.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. A lot of the major companies didn’t want the advertisements from their business names on the doors for company drivers, so I would say 95, 98 percent of the tractor trailer units were independent operators that would be affected by the border mandates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. Generally, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There was a mix; I’m not sure of the numbers. A very small, what we consider -- they’re called day cabs, where it’s just the cab and no sleeper unit, a very small amount. I remember seeing a handful; yes, there was some -- a few there.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’d say there’d be a good -- a mixed bag. What I kind of realized, the community really came together, so there would be -- the trucks would have to run a lot because it so frigid. What one guy would do, would rent a hotel room and then cycle through drivers to get cleaned up and showered and looked after. The majority of the guys slept in their trucks in the night.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, for heat.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Fuel wasn’t something we were worried about at the first. We didn’t know -- I didn’t know what to expect when we got here. I honestly, I had no clue. And so it was confusing to try and keep everything straight in a day.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It did, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I remember having conversations with some of the officers with regards to what we call a slip tank, which is a fixed 500-gallon tank in the back of a pickup truck with a hose and a pump, was a lot safer and a lot less risk of fuel spilling, compared to people walking around with 5-gallon jerry cans. That wasn’t -- that wasn’t the proper way to do things. And I tried to have a conversation multiple times to get more slip tanks in to put fuel in those trucks compared to safety hazards of the jerry cans.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. No we didn’t.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was not ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, not at all.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I tried multiple times with Rideau and Sussex and -- good guys, really good guys. And they had a point, and they were protesting and -- yeah, we just had a difference. I did what I could, but ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We were very fortunate that we had legal. We had lawyers fly in, I believe it was the first week, and we had guidance there. We had somebody that we could -- would tell us what our rights were because, you know, being truck drivers we're not all really good at litigating. So we had lawyers. We had people that could give us advice. We had -- there was a ton of advice there and it was very much appreciated.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, it did, yeah. We knew it was inevitable at some point, I guess. We were hoping it wasn't. We were hoping were able to resolve the issues with the government and we could all go home, but that didn't transpire.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I spoke with a lot of police liaison.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, they were successful in negotiating between the City I believe and us, and then that was a step in the right direction. We were hoping that one step forward would maybe result in another step higher and we could have an audience. But it didn't...
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
With some sort of Federal Government, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Good morning, Mr. Champ.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Sure.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oh, I wasn't aware of that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Whereabouts, may I ask?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Ah-ha, good.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It is God's country.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can only speak for myself, but for me personally it was the border mandates. That was the last straw, per se, in the government going too far and wanting -- I needed my voice to be heard.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There is so many different stories that I've heard throughout this ordeal that contributed to why we went there. When you're hearing stories of people's parents dying in a hospital bed alone ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
--- because mandates wouldn't allow their kids be with their adults when they took their last breath. There's -- you've seen the mental health issues in this country just plummet, it was sad. I watched that with my own children. My daughter was 16 at the time, was unvaxxed in high school, bullied by the rest of her classmates. Because she was -- wasn't vaccinated, she had to play a clarinet in a music class in a separate room.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe it came in afterwards. I believe the Canadian Government announced the mandate first.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think honestly when it come to the provincial mandates they were a lot to deal with. They didn't affect my business to the way that the federal mandates affected my business. That was the driving. And I've struggled with it. Even though they have been place since then, it has still been a struggle the entire summer to try and keep with a lack of drivers and equip we can get across the border, but we've literally lost a lot of guys.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. And to this day, I've never been to these parts, but my understanding across Canada was two staging areas. Major Hills Park and Confederate Park were the two places that the OPP... Now whether that message got mixed up somewhere along the lines, that is what I was told and that is what I understood coming across Canada, that we had places to stay, staging areas in these two parks. We had port-a-potties set up ready to go. They were prepared for us when we got there, and that turned out to be not true.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, OPS led myself and another truck, before the convoy was cut off at the War Memorial Museum there. It became clear to me then, with the amount of people downtown, with the amount of traffic downtown. And we slowly kind of worked our way to the Supreme Court is where I couldn't go any further, and that's where I was stopped. That's where my tractor remained for -- until I believe I removed it from the city on the 7th of February.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I had a hotel room.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We were at the York Hotel for a little while, and then we moved to the Sheraton I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I remember seeing that in my disclosure too. So the text message was to the -- something to the sort of "received a message from the Command Centre" was the basement at the Swiss Hotel. We had people there that were looking after EMTs. We had people on the ground to make sure people were safe in the crowds. EMT/RCMP, our police response.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was quite the operation. Tamara discussed the fact they wanted to ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
--- gridlock the city.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't remember having that conversation with her, and even if it had happened, I went right back out to make sure emergency lanes were open with police. So I -- if there was a meeting it wasn't to gridlock the city, it would have been to keep the emergency lanes open. That was my primary job the entire time I was here.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
In certain spots they did, yes. Like I tried really hard to make sure ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Emergency lanes. I can tell you, I almost got into a physical altercation at least twice with a driver that was ignorant about moving when I asked him to.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I always -- I don't like a mask, it's not something that I really enjoy wearing ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
--- but in the Province of Saskatchewan where I'm from I always wore my mask. I like to look at it as I didn't want to have that business get in trouble if a health officer walked in the door and seen I was being ignorant and didn't wear a mask. So I'll admit when I was in Ottawa, I didn't wear a mask here. We were here for anti mandates. But I have always followed the rules wherever they are in every restaurant. When the COVID vaccine passport came out in Saskatchewan October 1st, I didn't go to the restaurant.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was never part of that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not on my part. I believe that was more Canada Unity and James Bauder, I believe. That was something that was discussed in the January 13th. I remember watching it and listening to James talk about that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I never took part in it, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Understood.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, I was sick for a little while with a cold, a really bad cold, and I remember going into Shopper's Drug Mart downtown, somewhere near the hotel, and I had to put a mask on because the lady wouldn't serve us, and refused to serve us, so I put the mask on and obliged.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We never had any access to the money. We had a short stint of access. A lot of times, the drivers paid for their own hotel rooms. We had approximately -- I believe it was, like, $20,000. That's all the access we had to the money before I believe the bank accounts were frozen.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, the GoFundMe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, the etransfers would have went into Ms. Lich's personal bank account.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't know what happened with the cash. The cash was -- there was always people donating cash. It was all around, I guess.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I -- he was the Freedom Corp. paid accountant. I had no knowledge of that. I wasn't involved with any of that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, I took part in that spot, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I didn't get to count the cash. I was given envelopes and I would go then see what drivers were in need of some cash and deposit or give them the cash.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
$500. There was another group that came in towards the end. The -- I believe Ms. Belton's group were handing out $2,000 apparently but ---
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
--- it didn't go as far.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I would say probably more. I -- maybe, I'm not sure, 70. It's kind of hard to live off $50,000 a year in this country now.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe that would be a better question for Ms. Lich. I really never -- sorry.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, we had -- there was a businessman that helped us out along the way, Mr. Bourgault. Mr. Bourgault. I believe he was feeding the bills for some of our hotel rooms and then mentoring us and helping us out with -- -
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe he -- I don't know where Pat stayed. I was under the understanding he was outside the city somewhere in a RB&B or whatever they call it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't recall him talking to me personally about that.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There's a lot of things going on, on a regular basis, but I don't recall.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
So an air horn is a factory set of horns on a commercial truck, which is usually mounted on the roof of the cab operated by -- in my personal truck, it's a chain in the centre of the dash on the top and you pull it, it operates the two horns that are on the roof. A train horn is an after market. It is literally three large train horns with a valve. Usually guys mount them. I don't own a train horn. I've never owned one. It's mounted on the floor, and it's got a valve where you put more air to it to make a louder noise, I guess. They're obnoxious.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, the purpose in my opinion, personal opinion on a train horn is just ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's used for two primary reasons. One's for excitement. I always like to go back to the kids sitting on the side of the road, or when you have a vehicle pass you with kids in the back seat and they're doing the arm pump. That's the excitement part of an air horn. Then the other part of the air horn is the danger.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I guess so, yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
My truck was parked in front of the Supreme Court for -- from February [sic] 29th when we were arrived until I removed it from downtown on February 7th. So I don't believe I personally pulled an air horn after the ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They did. Yeah, they were everywhere, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
For the first little while, yes. And those that wouldn't listen, we tried to reason with and get them -- I tried to reason with to try and get them under control.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't recall that. There was something to do with that. There was a couple guys in front of Parliament that were obnoxiously blowing their horn, I'll say.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was never part of my dealings. I involved myself in a couple of the block captain meetings, but for the most part, I didn't -- I don't remember hearing anything about that. I remember there being a curfew, what was it, seven to seven, or something like that, that somebody negotiated in the first week. My memory fails me on exactly what it was.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
-
Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't recall that. I remember -- no, the videos when I would yell -- I think there's multiple videos out there of me yelling stop and then there was daily hours, so I was sleeping at night, and to be honest with you, where I was in the hotel room, I don't remember the train - - or the horns actually waking me or having a hard time sleeping.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I'd have to see the video again to see that. I don't recall that video. I'm not saying it's not there, but ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It might have been in the evening, I would say. I remember -- yeah. I remember doing a video. I seen it in my evidence here last night where I showed the street in front of my hotel room with the trucks, and it was in the evening, and it was perfectly quiet.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
So in regards to that video there, in consultation with legal teams, we were instructed that the bunk of your truck was considered a residence and that police needed to have a warrant to breach the residence of your truck. And we were also instructed by legal counsel that in a case of something like that, what we -- what they were telling me -- I've never got involved with something like this before, so I have no idea what happens when police kettle, but in my understanding was if the police come and there are mass arrests happening, we were allowed to try and warn the other drivers. So, yes, there was a video. It's in evidence, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Apparently, there was a -- there was some sort of a deal in the first week or so. We were allowed to honk during the days apparently, so, yeah. I'm trying to play by the rules. If I ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think with the City. I was never involved with the inner workings of the deals with the City, other than when we did the truck move, or the court injunction, or something to that affect. There was a deal out there and I'm not -- I don't remember exactly.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Could be possible. They worked behind the scenes relentless. They were honestly godsends. They were -- they were right there with us for help.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They were annoying. I remember a Sunday service in front of the stage and we were trying to listen to the pastor do the sermon, and you couldn’t. It was kind of like -- but that was in front of Wellington, and that was, I believe, in the first week, so.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know that name.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t know that name, either.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
If I had, there’s -- like I said, my phone was extremely busy. There’s a ton of numbers on that phone. If there would be no contact name with it, there might have been somebody contact me, but not to my knowledge, I should say, right.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you, Mr. Champ.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Pleased to meet you.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, they were.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
So there were three major accounts that were frozen. One was the corporate account. The other one was a joint bank account with my lovely wife. And the third was Toronto-Dominion personal bank account. The personal bank account with Toronto-Dominion was closed for roughly three and a half months. I had no access to funds. The other two bank accounts were -- they were closed for the weekend. A couple payments went back. I had one NSF charge, which I believe, and the fuel cards got shut off for my drivers. They weren’t very happy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
In my line of business with the trucking company, we run cardlock cards with different fuel distributors, and I have agreements with those fuel companies to withdraw all payments automatically out of my accounts every Sunday so I’m up and current on my fuel bills.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, they are.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Twentieth (20th). They would have been frozen on the 17th, I believe. My bank manager at CIBC explained to me that they were reopened on Monday. She wouldn’t give me details. She’d explained to me that she got an email from RCMP saying it was an illegal freeze or something and that they were reopened right away. But Toronto-Dominion was a different story. They -- Toronto-Dominion was closed without any excuse. I tried desperately to get a hold of somebody from Toronto-Dominion to explain to me why my accounts were frozen, and I have yet to receive an explanation.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe they were frozen on the day of. We weren’t -- I wasn’t really using a debit card. All the stores were closed downtown, so I believe the 17th is when they were frozen.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe so. I don’t think I knew that the corporate account was frozen until -- I didn’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t check balances or anything until I got back home, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That I can’t recall. I don’t remember if I got much correspondence. I’m personal friends with my banker at CIBC, so she may have sent me a text message. I didn’t have a phone, so I can’t recall.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The debit card wouldn’t work.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. No, I didn’t. I was given a phone number and a first name, and when I called that number, I was -- just a short answer. I believe I spoke with him. He called me back once. I kind of made it a point to call him every week to question him on why, and I never did get an answer back.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was, yeah. Somebody in Ontario, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, cancellation of my fuel cards. So I had to remake the payment. The fuel cards were shut off because of the lack of payment. There was an NSF charge. One that happened down the road a little ways, I applied for a loan and was going to put a significant amount of cash down -- money down on the loan for a deposit and I was rejected from my financing company because of my -- because of the account being frozen, apparently. I don’t know. They wouldn’t really explain. They just said I was declined the loan, and I have a perfect credit rating. I have never been in trouble with credit. It’s been years since I’ve been in trouble with a credit rating, 20- some plus years, I would say, so I stand good with the banks.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
That was a little tough.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I would imagine it was a matter of a day or two. I was into the bank right away. I was home, so I was able to get into the bank and make the payment right away. And fuel companies are good, but they get pretty nervous when a payment gets returned.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It changes everything you do. You don’t realize how much you use the debit card in your pocket, I guess. I went back to -- as any Canadian, I apparently keep a small stash of cash for emergencies, and that got used. I had to go back to cash for the time being.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Appreciate it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Good afternoon.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Appreciate it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t believe so, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t believe so, no. There was -- it was a busy phone. I may have missed something. I don’t remember or recall ever receiving any contact.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. We were busy here enough. We weren’t worried about Windsor, Coutts or anywhere else.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It did not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not to my knowledge, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, against the mandates.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Exclusively attending the protest in Ottawa.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, not to my knowledge.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, we had nothing to do with Windsor. That was -- as far as I know, they more issues at those border crossings, from what I watched on social media lives. It wasn’t the same thing as what we were doing here.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t remember or recall when -- I don’t know the story there. I didn’t pay enough -- like, I said, it was so busy here, I didn’t have time to pay attention to anywhere else.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I appreciate your time.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Mr. Miller.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’m very well, thank you.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Feeling good, thank you very much.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
A court order?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I assume we would have left, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Approximately, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Instructed people to leave.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not to my knowledge. At that point, my truck was out of the city. I had no equipment here.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Hard to say. I honestly don’t know. James Bauder was the only one at the time that I knew. There was different people, I think, representing him.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe none.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I believe none.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I never heard anything.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t recall having a conversation with them. I believe it might have been a conversation in the group of people together that it had no bearing and it wasn’t to be looked at. It was essentially nothing.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, I do, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I think Pat had a substantial following on Facebook, I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oh, there was a few. Absolutely, there was a few.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There were so many people here, so many people with every different background, I would -- I don’t even know if I could guess, Mr. Miller.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I did not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Never, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
None.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Definitely strained over the last however many months it’s been with the court order against us contacting each other. So yeah, I met her. I spent approximately a month with her and got to know her quite well. She’s a genuine -- a good person. And then I only get to see her now through legal counsel. So some day maybe we’ll fix that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Pretty close to midget height.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I’m not even going to look at her. I’m not ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It’s the short ones you really have to worry about, not ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t think she’d harm a butterfly. No, she would never say that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Absolutely not.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, they were all -- as far a I understand, they were all organic movements.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t agree with that assumption. I can’t see -- being how organic the movement was, honestly, I’d say we weren’t smart enough to come up with that idea.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t believe I did.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don’t, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I can't -- I don’t think I read any of them, but I would say no, there wouldn't have -- there was never any talk about it.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
The dates seem pretty far apart for that. I believe the bullets comment was earlier, so I'm assuming this was the day I was arrested, so I have this one.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. Yeah, I didn’t review it at the time, but I've seen it now since.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I do, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was not, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, I got a 19-year- old son, Jonathan. He was 18 at the time. He's refused to get the vaccine. He's been around people with COVID multiple times and he's yet to catch it, for some reason. So he's going off his natural immunity. He's a fairly strong-willed guy. I don't know where he gets that from. He refuses to get it, and I stand by him.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
My parents, my father received his second dose of this -- and it could be together or not -- his gallbladder quit working on him, and I watched my father deteriorate quite badly. He's fine now, but still, you lose that body mass, you don’t seem to get it back at 70 years old, so ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
February 7th, to my best recollection.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was very tricky, yes. So there was roadblocks everywhere.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
It was February 7th, I believe. I was parked in front of the Supreme Court so -- and I still didn’t really know my way around Ottawa that well at that time, so I remember going down whatever street would have been near there, Lyon or somewhere in there. It was tough. It was hard to navigate your way back out of there and then make sure you were on the right street that was heading the right direction. So eventually made my way out of the city. It was tough.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
You had to get a police approval to move every single barricade. There was the police there. There was -- when we first arrived in Ottawa, the city officials used payloaders, graders, and trucks to blockade the streets for safety concerns or whatever it was they did, and then when the snowfall came, the first snowfall came, I remember they removed all that and they replaced them with concrete barriers, and then a police car would sit at each barrier in the centre and would be able to move to allow traffic to go through.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
No. No, if somebody needed to leave, we would facilitate that no matter what. We -- -
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Oh. No, it was a job to get somebody out of the city, but nobody ever was -- had troubles, wasn’t forced to stay, if you're meaning that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Life changing. Yeah, it was amazing. There was so much grown men crying on your shoulder, women crying on your shoulder, grandmas, grandpas, you name it, kids. It was really -- and it is an experience, unforgettable.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Who I didn’t speak to. It was everybody. You couldn't -- I remember Mr. Marazzo and I went for a walk and Mr. Wilson, and it was like, Mr. Wilson explained it was like walking on the street with Mick Jagger, he said, because no matter where you went, there was somebody wanting to stop and talk with you. It was -- there was a lot of love.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Frustrating. We had all those trucks ready to go, seven o'clock in the morning. We had spoke with them the night before on the Sunday. We had the streets lined up. We had everybody all placed. We had organized trucks to come. I don't remember the block. It was right in front of Parliament on the -- pretty much on West Block. We were able to -- we get them all organized, all warmed up, and then we couldn't get anybody to move. The police wouldn't move, the city officials. You could tell by my text messages with Kim that it was frustrating. We were ready to go and we were deprived time to get things going.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We were trying to -- I don't know if the trucks leaving had trouble, as much trouble as the trucks trying to get up onto Wellington. That was what my focus was. My focus was only getting the trucks onto Wellington. Other guys looked after the ones that wanted to leave the city.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I'm assuming so. I didn’t take part in the actual leaving. Like I said, my focus was trucks onto Wellington.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
In the time we were allotted, we cleared out the two blocks. We had plans to clear out more.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I was told 100 vehicles, approximately 40 trucks, 23 of which we moved up onto Wellington.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
(Audio skip) frequented the Tim Horton's for meals. We frequented any restaurants that were open. Any business that I was in, the Iconic Café was another one, Shawarma, any business that we were in flourished. They did really well. Then they said -- a lot of the businesses said they hadn’t profited so much in the last two years as they did in that three weeks.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
They ---
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I remember the Tim Horton's on one of the corners there, truckers were mopping the floor because the staff was overrun, and guys had the mop pail out and they were cleaning the floors. Of course it's wintertime, sloshy and disgusting floors. I was pretty proud to see that.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Not that I recall, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Apparently, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I remember hearing that, yeah.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Very divisive for a leader of a country to be pitting one person in the country against the other person. I would say I felt, you know, not very leadership worthy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I've seen some in the news reports, I guess, yeah, there's a few. Not that I can recall the names of the ministers, but there's been a few.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't remember what their point was. They -- no. There was a barrier, an -- a language barrier there because they were French Canadians. So my French is -- I don't speak French so I had a hard time understanding them.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
There was sort of a rift, sort of a split between the two groups. Ms. Belton's, yeah, when I heard the $500 versus the $2,000, that was -- Ms. Brigitte's was trying to -- the group of people that were donating that were passing $2,000 instead of the $500.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I don't think so, no.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I -- that I can't say, 10, 15.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Joseph.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, Joseph Bourgault is a good friend of mine. He is a big business owner in the Province of Saskatchewan, a well-respected man, and he offered his services to mentor. He spoke to me on a regular basis just on protocol and advice, and a really good guy.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Well, I think at first our bank accounts were all -- like we had no money coming in. GiveSendGo or GoFundMe wouldn't release any funds to us, so we were financially strapped for the amount of hotels. So hopefully someday we can pay that back.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Did Mr. Bourgault provide financial assistance?
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
He did, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
With hotel rooms.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
To this day, I still don't know. I would imagine it had something to do, Ms. Lich added my name to her Toronto Dominion Bank where the funds, the GoFundMe funds went into for the GoFundMe, the one million, and then the e-transfer. For transparency she added myself to her bank account so everything was out in the open, there was two sets of eyes looking at it. She was -- the biggest worry for her was that somebody would accuse her of misusing funds, which wasn't the case.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I had a personal Toronto Dominion. So all she did was merge the two savings accounts, so I could physically see her savings account on my card. That's the only thing that I assume had to do with why my bank account was frozen for three-and-a-half months.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, for the purposes of transparency so that the -- there was more eyes on that account than just hers.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I'm hoping I can this week. I have never seen it, I have only heard about it. So that'll be on my list to do after this Inquiry.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
I have no idea.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
With today's fuel prices, roughly about $3,000 probably in fuel to come out here from Saskatchewan. It was quite the feat.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Rideau was the hard one. There was -- Rideau was the one we tried multiple times. The other one was somewhere on Kent I believe.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
We tried really hard to keep Kent open. I remember the first time we visited Kent, we worked all day, we got that lane wide open, and we were so proud of ourselves. We came back the next morning and it was completely plugged again. We kind of -- we kept working on them.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes, sir.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
To my recollection, everything was well looked after other than those two areas. Those were the only two areas of concern that I felt that I had troubles with personally, and the group of people that I was with.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yeah, the Rideau/Sussex was not part of our original group. They were there a day or so before we arrived. Kent may have been. I didn't recognise all the trucks. There was some in Kent that was part of the original West group, I can confirm that, yes.
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Chris Barber (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you very much, Commissioner.