Protesting the Pretext of the Protest's Protesters

Or, Freely Conveying the Freedom Convoy of Freedom's 2022 Conveyances. No, the Freedom Convoy 2022 never wanted to overthrow the government.

In January 2022 some news organizations published articles either suggesting or directly claiming that the convoy of truckers heading to Ottawa were trying to overthrow government. Some news organizations still seem to be promoting that idea as if it were true. It is not.

As an example, a February 10 CTV News piece claimed:

“James Bauder is the founder of Canada Unity, one of the groups responsible for the initial organization of the convoy to Ottawa. 

Ahead of the convoy’s arrival in the capital, Canada Unity directed a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) to the Senate and the Governor General, demanding an end to vaccine mandates and the reinstatement of those who lost jobs over COVID-19 vaccinations, or else “RESIGN their lawful positions of authority Immediately” (sic). 

Bauder said in a video posted to social media in January that he hoped the MOU would provide a “referendum” to persuade Elections Canada to trigger an election, which is not within the agency’s constitutional powers.” 

Canada Unity was not part of the initiation of this convoy protest, nor representative of the protest, and James Bauder was not a designated spokesperson for it. The MOU in question was prepared in the fall of 2021 long before the convoy and policies that inspired it were founded. Let’s look at the historical details.

The Freedom Convoy 2022 group was started by Tamara Lich after the January 15 mandates requiring truckers be vaccinated to cross the border:

"Tamara Lich, working with trucker Chris Barber from Swift Current Saskatchewan, started a fundraising campaign on social media that raised several hundred thousand dollars within days of its ‘GoFundMe’ page launch."

“We have a massive team behind us now. We are going to roll across Canada. They are going to go to Parliament Hill and sit there and protest, peacefully of course until these mandates are lifted,” said Ms. Lich, an oil and gas worker from Medicine Hat Alberta."

The GoFundMe page is gone now, and is not available at the Wayback Machine (archive.org). However, I did monitor the page daily to see the increase in support. There was nothing on the GoFundMe page by the organizers about any MOU, overthrowing government, putting themselves in the government, or demanding resignations.

Once it started to get traction, Ms. Lich asked Benjamin Dichter to take on a role as spokesperson for the movement, according to Mr. Dichter, and listed him on the GoFundMe page. On January 27, Mr. Dichter was interviewed by Tucker Carlson where he reiterated the objectives which were about the vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and he objected to apparent phone tracking of citizens.

By way of contrast, the Canada Unity group formed sometime in 2021 apparently, by James and Sandra Bauder. They had a “Convoy for Freedom” that arrived on Ottawa on October 6, 2021, almost 4 months prior to this convoy.

Canada Unity created a Memorandum of Understanding in 2021 and reported got 320,000 signatures. They "delivered" it to the Senate on December 10, 2021, and recorded the attempt to deliver it to the Senate on December 10, 2021, a video of which is available on Bitchute, published on December 12, 2021. The package was not accepted and appear to state they then had to mail it.

Canada Unity appears to have also started a protest plan in December 2021 called "Bear Hug" which planned a protest in Ottawa following their failure to deliver that MOU. They've since removed the page but you can see some of the comments in the Wayback Machine (archive.org).

Canada Unity has since replaced it with a "Bear Hug 2.0" complete with a manifesto and Code of Conduct that roughly aligns with the Freedom Convoy 2022 goals, but notably at the bottom of the manifesto says, "In support of Convoy for Freedom 2022." Note that it is “in support of” and does not claim to represent that convoy. Also note the wording of “Convoy for Freedom 2022” fits the Canada Unity “Convoy of Freedom” from October 2021, but is notably different from the “Freedom Convoy 2022” GoFundMe and there is no claim on the website to be an official representative for a protest convoy of either “2022” name. It appears they are in support of the Freedom Convoy 2022 movement but mixed the naming with their own prior effort, whether accidental or intentional.

It is possible that Canada Unity unofficially assisted in organizing some of the truckers across Canada in support of the Freedom Convoy 2022. That may be where the confusion started, or perhaps it was with the similarity to the small October 2021 convoy to Ottawa by Canada Unity, and some journalists just didn’t check the dates.

So, to be clear, unless there is some other information not as easily found by search engines, the current Freedom Convoy 2022 organization appears to have no direct relationship to, nor has ever been represented by, Canada Unity. The MOU does not, and never did, apply to the current protest in Ottawa from the existing organizers.

The current protest was organized by the Freedom Convoy 2022 under GoFundMe followed by GiveSendGo, which is still up (or up again) as of February 15, 2022. On January 30, 2022, the organizers created a Not-for-Profit named Freedom 2022 Human Rights and Freedoms. (OK, so the name doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue and is perhaps redundant, repetitive, and saying the same thing twice.) It lists the Directors including Ms. Lich and Mr. Dichter. There is no mention of Canada Unity nor the Bauders in any of the Freedom Convoy 2022 material.

There may have been contact however, or at least sympathy from Canada Unity. On February 8, 2022, Canada Unity removed the MOU from their website, noting the confusion. They state:

"It has come to the attention of Canada Unity that the Memorandum Of Understanding (herein referred to as MOU) does not reflect the spirit and intent of the Freedom Convoy Movement 2022”

“We are immediately withdrawing the MOU as we do not want any unintended interpretations to continue.”

The media got it wrong. Given the CTV piece was published February 10 and updated February 11, the media continues to get it wrong. Many other outlets have been associating the two organizations and trying to paint the Freedom Convoy 2022 protest as a far-right effort, and seeking out means to smear it (Toronto Star, The Verge, The Toronto Sun).

If the press wants to be taken seriously, they need to do better. If they want to be trusted, they need to be better.

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[Update 2022-02-18] For clarification, the differences between the organizations does not mean that there is no overlap of people involved. As cited, Canada Unity appears to directly support the Freedom Convoy 2022 movement. Members of Canada Unity group appear to be assisting the Freedom Convoy 2022 movement, which includes James Bauder who is listed on what appears to be the official Freedom Convoy 2022 website as well as several others using Canada Unity email addresses.

But, the Freedom Convoy 2022 was founded later by different people with a different approach and by all appearances has neither copied nor endorsed any policies or positions of the Canada Unity group. In fact, the opposite appears to have occurred in that the Canada Unity group has disavowed themselves of their past efforts by taking down the MOU and creating the manifesto and Code of Contact that aligns with the Freedom Convoy 2022.

To reiterate, the Freedom Convoy 2022 does not appear to ever have endorsed the idea of overthrowing the government. Extending to that, Canada Unity does not appear to have done that either, though what they were proposing in their MOU was apparently not a feasible legal partnership. I have not been able to find or read it, so I can’t say for sure.

[Update 2022-02-21] Thanks to direction from KenFromOttawa, the MOU can be found with direct link here. The primary point of the MOU is Article 3(a), asking for an agreement between Canada Unity and the Senate of Canada and the Governor General of Canada to form a Citizens of Canada Committee (CCC), and then have the CCC do various things with respect to Canadian law.

This is obviously not something that could even happen under the laws of Canada. But, there is nothing in there about overthrowing government. It’s a poor understanding of how government and legislation work, but clearly intended to have some public oversight. Fairly silly.

Article 3(j) says that Canada Unity will immediately stop “Operation Bear Hug Ottawa”. This is probably another point of confusion. As in the article above, this Bear Hug was an effort of Canada Unity. The MOU file name has Dec 3 date, delivered Dec 10. “Operation Bear Hug” never happened. When a completely different group formed, Freedom Convoy 2022, Canada Unity changed their effort to Bear Hug 2.0 which adopted the very different objectives and measures of Freedom Convoy 2022, including the manifesto about peaceful protest and the peaceful Code of Conduct. The MOU never applied to the Freedom Convoy 2022 objectives.

[Update 2022-02-25] Tom Marazzo, one of the organizers and a spokesperson for the Freedom Convoy 2022, just did an interview with Viva Frei (David Freiheit), a Quebec lawyer and Youtuber who generated more than 40 hours of unedited live streams from the Ottawa protests.

At 1 hour, 36 minutes in, Freiheit asks him about the MOU, “Who issued that, and on behalf of whom was that memorandum drafted?” Marazzo responds,

“I believe that’s Canada Unity that have been active long before this convoy was ever even a thought in anybody’s head. They have been working on that memorandum for quite some time. And, although they were participating in supporting the Freedom Convoy 2022, they also had their own organization — and there were many other organizations throughout the convoy — but there was a group of us in there and said look, we’re all about Team Canada. So there’s all these other groups trying to — they have their own agendas and they’re made pubic and there’s no intention to overthrow the government, but there are synergies there. And so everybody was trying to take advantage of the opportunity to get their message out, right.”

It’s clear in his discussion that the Freedom Convoy 2022 was neither conceived behind, nor carrying out any efforts resulting from Canada Unity. Quite the opposite, Canada Unity adapted their efforts to fit into the Freedom Convoy 2022. Following from the article above, that includes abandoning their own MOU and “Operation Bear Hug” and implementing “Bear Hug 2.0” which created the manifesto and Code of Conduct aligned with Freedom Convoy 2022. That is, the Canada Unity prior odd approach was “rehabilitated” by the much better approach of Freedom Convoy 2022. The press and politicians got it exactly backwards, and of course misrepresented what was in the MOU in the first place.

At 1 hour, 50 minutes, Freiheit shares a CBC story claiming Pat King was a leader of the convoy. At 1 hour, 54 minutes, he and asks Marazzo, “Do you know is Pat King the leader of the convoy?” Marazzo responsds,

“No, no. Pat King is the leader of the convoy that he arrived in. And, ah, you know, I had a conversation with him and a few other people and I said, ‘Hey Pat, no offense but you’re a little bit of a hand grenade for us. OK? You do your thing. You’re always going to do what Pat King does.’ And we had no effort at all to stop Pat from doing what Pat was going to do. He came there, just like everyone else, for the same stated purpose, but he goes about it in a different way. But he brought people there, he brought support.

He did a lot of things that people who don’t know, he did a lot of good things for a lot of people. He got drivers fuel. He got drivers food. He got drivers access to showers and stuff like that. But, on the other other hand, we were always terrified that he was going to go and do some live streaming — and I told him this so I don’t feel like I’m talking behind his back - I told him, ‘Pat, you’re a little bit of a hand grenade for us because we don’t know what you’re going to do on social media after you do, you know something.”

Pat King was not a leader of the Freedom Convoy 2022, nor a spokesperson, nor endorsed. In fact, he was warned by them that his actions could be a problem for them and potentially undermine their efforts — efforts that were completely about a peaceful protest limited to the vaccine mandates and passports and welcoming of everybody of every walk of life, race, religion and background, and clearly stated by Tamara Lich herself on Marc Patrone’s podcast on January 22. He was, at best, tolerated as a participant because he brought other participants and helped out.

Now, arguably he was an organizer of his own sub-convoy group. Fair enough. But he did not insert his own demands in place of those of Freedom Convoy 2022 and did not speak on their behalf. And, and no point of the Freedom Convoy 2022 did either the official spokespeople for the movement suggest overthrowing the government, nor, as far as I can find, did Pat King.

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Cover photo courtesy of Deutsche Fotothek‎ under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.