The anti-COVID-19 restriction blockades gridlocked Ottawa for three weeks last winter as protesters parked trucks that blocked neighbourhood access and main arteries around Parliament Hill.

After her arrest, Lich was released on bail in March on conditions which include staying off social media. She cannot organize any kind of protest and she is also not permitted to contact several of the other convoy leaders, including Tom Marazzo, an ex-military officer, who also had a failed bid as an Ontario MPP candidate.

Lich was subject to a bail review last month where prosecutors unsuccessfully sought to have her taken back into custody for allegedly violating her bail condition that she not support anything related to the Freedom Convoy.

Weeks after she was granted release in March, Lich was notified she'd been selected as a recipient of a freedom award, handed out by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), a legal organization and registered charity based in Calgary.

Tamara Lich, fourth from the left, was ordered by a judge to have no contact with fellow convoy organizer Tom Marazzo, who is tagged as being second from the right. This photo shows the group in Toronto after Lich accepted her freedom award from the JCCF. (Facebook/Stacey Kauder )

The awards ceremony took place on June 16 in Toronto. 

The Ottawa judge ruled he would not revoke Lich's bail and instead, varied her conditions to allow travel to Ontario with a restriction that she be banned from entering the capital's downtown core.

Lich's reasoning for wanting to travel back to Ottawa is protected by a court-ordered publication ban and cannot be reported.

But on June 17, the day after the freedom awards were presented, Stacey Kauder, who describes Lich as a friend, posted a photo to her Facebook page showing Lich with her husband and four other attendees at the JCCF gala.

To Lich's left is a man identified as Marazzo, a fellow convoy organizer, who she was ordered to have no contact with unless her lawyer is present.

Friends of the two convoy organizers speculated on social media that Lich was allowed to have contact with Marazzo at the event because there were lawyers for the JCCF present who also represent Lich in her civil matters.

Governments of all three levels, convoy organizers and police have been granted standing in the public inquiry looking into the invocation of the federal Emergencies Act, but the federal Conservative Party and a number of individuals who had their bank accounts frozen have been left out.

Granting groups or individuals standing allows them certain privileges in the inquiry process, including the ability to suggest witnesses or cross-examine them. It also means they are given advance notice on documents being submitted into evidence.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the act on Feb. 14 — for the first time in Canada's history — during the Freedom Convoy. The act gave the federal government temporary powers to deal with the anti-COVID-19 restriction blockades that gridlocked Ottawa for three weeks last winter as protesters parked trucks that blocked neighbourhood access and main arteries around Parliament Hill.

Paul Rouleau, the commissioner heading the inquiry, wrote in his decision that the deadline to submit the inquiry report weighed on his final determination.

"I must keep in mind the practical realities facing the commission, including the strict timeline in which to complete the Inquiry," Rouleau wrote.

The federal government, the governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been granted full standing, while the government of Manitoba will be allowed to enter written submissions.

Key convoy organizers including Tamara Lich, Tom Marazzo, Chris Barber and Daniel Bulford have been granted full standing.

"Their contributions to the work of the commission are necessary, as they are uniquely situated to offer information to the commission and give firsthand evidence as to the goals and organization of the convoy," Rouleau wrote of the organizers.

The Ottawa Police Service has been granted full standing, while its former chief Peter Sloly will be allowed to produce documents and examine witnesses.

The cities of Ottawa and Windsor have also been granted standing.

Protesters form a blockade in front of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., which links the city to Michigan. (Darrin Di Carlo/CBC)

Conservatives, individual participants denied

The federal Conservative Party and individual protesters are some notable exclusions in Rouleau's decision.

In his dismissal of the Conservatives, Rouleau pointed to the parliamentary committee reviewing the use of the act and said the inquiry needs to remain above the political fray.

"The political process that involves elected representatives from the various parties has a role to play in how the use of the Emergencies Act is reviewed and assessed," Rouleau said.

"There is also an important role for an independent non-partisan process. Both ought to operate independently from one another."

A number of individual protesters, including some who had their bank accounts frozen, were also denied standing in the inquiry.

Rouleau reasoned that individual protesters would have limited perspective on what unfolded earlier this year.

"By and large, their contribution would be limited to what they saw, heard or experienced from their particular vantage point as a participant or supporter of the convoy," Rouleau said, adding that individuals will be able to have their voices heard during public hearings.

The commission's final report must be submitted by February 2023.

One of the judges who presided over the court hearings of Freedom Convoy organizers is speaking out after receiving threats considered serious enough to require police intervention, according to information obtained by Radio-Canada and CBC.

The judge in question confirmed that supporters of the convoy from Canada and the United States sent several offensive messages, but the message that prompted police to react threatened their physical safety, the judge said.

It's intimidation. It's trying to influence a court decision, and that's serious.

- Judge who is not being identified due to safety concerns

CBC has agreed to withhold the judge's identity to protect their safety.

"I thought, should I tell my children not to come home for a while?" the judge said.

"I changed my alarm system. I was advised not to take the same route every day," the judge added. "You feel vulnerable in your house, in your own home."

Police enforce an injunction against protesters on Parliament Hill on Feb. 19, 2022. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

The judge believes most Canadians respect the justice system, but said a vocal minority is seeking to undermine it.

"It's intimidation. It's trying to influence a court decision, and that's serious," the judge said.

Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Richard Wagner expressed similar concerns in a recent speech in Montreal.

"The pandemic has forced many people to live online during lockdowns. And it is at times like these that lies and conspiracies spread like wildfire," Wagner said in French on June 9.

"As we have seen around the world, disinformation poses a real threat to democratic institutions."

The demonstrations that took place in Ottawa this winter stemmed in part from this disinformation, Wagner said. He encouraged people to "inform, instruct and educate" their fellow citizens.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Richard Wagner, pictured here at a news conference in 2021, warned in a recent speech that 'disinformation poses a real threat to democratic institutions.' (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

Ministry silent on further threats

Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General would not say if any other judges have received threats from Freedom Convoy supporters.

"It would be inappropriate for the ministry to comment on a potential or ongoing police investigation," wrote ministry spokesperson Brian Gray in an email to Radio-Canada.

He wrote that the ministry "takes court security and the safety of all those in our courthouses ... very seriously," and that local police or Ontario Provincial Police provide security "to ensure the highest level of protection."

The Ontario Court of Justice and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice both declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so.

CBC News reached out to a number of key figures of the weeks-long demonstration in Ottawa, but requests for comment were either declined or went unanswered. 

No charges have been laid in this matter. It's not known whether the investigation is ongoing at this time, and police would not comment.

The lawyer representing convoy leader Tamara Lich says his latest high-profile client deserves to be well-represented, but Lawrence Greenspon won't disclose whether he is being paid or took the case for free. 

Lich, who was behind fundraising efforts that raised more than $10 million to support the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa, is charged jointly with Chris Barber with mischief, counselling mischief, obstructing police, counselling to obstruct police, counselling intimidation, and intimidation by blocking and obstructing one or more highways. 

She joins a handful of high-profile Greenspon clients. He has previously represented Mohammad Momin Khawaja, the first Canadian charged under Canada's Anti-terrorism Act, as well as former senator Mike Duffy.

"Some of the people that have contacted me are well aware of the fact that in the past I've represented alleged terrorists and murderers and people charged with sexual assault. That, I guess, in their minds is OK," Greenspon said.

'The reaction from strangers has been — I'm disappointed because you were this, that and the other in our community and I don't put that together with you representing Tamara Lich,' says Lawrence Greenspon. (Alistair Steele/CBC)

"But representing Tamara Lich who has no criminal record, is not charged with any violent offence, there's no weapons involved, there's no sexual assault — they seem to have a problem with that."

He said he swore an oath to zealously defend a person whose liberty is at stake.

"I don't have any difficulty at all in representing Tamara Lich. It doesn't mean that I agree with anything she did or didn't do. But it does mean that she's entitled to representation when her liberty's at stake," he said.

Lich was arrested Feb. 17, denied bail, but then released on March 7 on the condition she leave Ottawa within 24 hours, refrain from using social media and have no contact with certain co-organizers.

Everybody has a right to be represented under the law.

— Lawrence Greenspon

Diane Magas had been representing Barber and Lich, but is now just representing Barber. 

Greenspon is expected to challenge the conditions of Lich's bail, particularly as it applies to her use of social media.

"The reaction from friends has been, 'I'm not surprised, she's going to be well represented.' The reaction from strangers has been, 'I'm disappointed because you were this, that and the other in our community and I don't put that together with you representing Tamara Lich,'" he said.

"It's those individuals that really need to understand what the role of defence counsel is and how important it is that everybody has a right to be represented under the law."

Worked in oil and gas

Lich worked in the oil and gas sector in Alberta from 2017 until she was laid off in March 2020 "due to closures related to COVID-19," according to a sworn affidavit made by her March 2.

She and her husband moved to Harrison Park, Man., for work after he was laid off, but by November 2021 they were back in Alberta and working again.

She used five weeks of vacation time to come to Ottawa, where she was considered a key figure in the protests against COVID-19 health measures, according to the affidavit.

 In her affidavit, she said she would return to work following her release on bail.

Raised millions for convoy

In a separate affidavit filed in court related to a proposed class action suit against her and others, Lich said she was involved in the creation of the crowdfunding campaign for the Freedom Convoy on the GoFundMe platform.

Lich delivers a statement during a news conference in Ottawa, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

She said she used a personal TD bank account, which had no balance, as the designated account to hold donated funds. 

An email address was set up to accept donations, which also went into a personal account belonging to her. At the time, she was the only person with access to the donations. 

When GoFundMe released $1 million of donated funds on Feb. 2, it did so into Lich's personal account she designated for the protest. 

Two days after sending her $1 million, GoFundMe said it closed the campaign, citing violations of its rules on violence and harassment, with all remaining donations being returned directly to individual donors. 

Lich said that the same day she received the GoFundMe money, a "hold" was placed on her account associated with the Freedom Convoy. She said the bank didn't prevent money from being deposited into the account, but funds could not be withdrawn. 

While she had access to the money provided by GoFundMe, Lich said she completed approximately $26,000 in transactions. 

She spent $13,000 on bulk fuel purchases and another $13,000 was "withdrawn in cash and utilized for various purposes," she said in her affidavit.

At the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa on Tuesday, they gathered to remember the Babi Yar massacre.

Over two days in late September 1941, nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children were herded through the streets of Kyiv in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, stripped of their clothing and forced into a narrow ravine where they were mown down with machine guns. Dead and wounded alike were then buried where they lay.

At the solemn ceremony, which happened the same day provincial officials unveiled details of Ontario's vaccine passport system, there was little sympathy for those who have been protesting against such passports and vaccine mandates — some comparing themselves to victims of Nazi brutality.

"It's a total desecration of the memory of … those that were killed during the Holocaust," said prominent Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who co-chaired Tuesday's commemoration. "It's incredibly insulting."

The comparisons are "vile," agreed Andrea Freedman, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

"They're dangerous, and they're a gross and wilful distortion of history," she told CBC News.

Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon said it's 'incredibly insulting' for protesters to make such comparisons to the plight of European Jews during the Holocaust. (Alistair Steele/CBC)

"It's offensive. It's offensive to the survivors, and it's offensive to the memory of the six million people who were systematically murdered."

It's difficult to say whether the sentiment is widespread among the protesters, or representative of an extreme fringe. Protesters wearing yellow stars like those Jews were forced to wear in Nazi-occupied Europe have been seen at demonstrations across Canada.

At a demonstration in Calgary last week, one protester held a picture of Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who died in a Nazi concentration camp.

One internet meme making the rounds shows two forearms, one wearing a proof-of-vaccination bracelet at a baseball game, the other bearing a six-digit tattoo from a concentration camp.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it," the caption reads.

But CBC News spotted no sign of demonstrators comparing their cause to the plight of Jews during the Second World War when about 50 gathered on Monday near the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital.

Speakers at a ceremony on Tuesday at Ottawa's National Holocaust Monument cautioned against forgetting the lessons of history. (Alistair Steele/CBC)

Freedman rejects any such comparisons as not only wrong-headed, but potentially dangerous.

"There can be absolutely no comparison between torture and persecution, to getting a vaccine or wearing a mask, and quite frankly making such comparisons just trivializes the horrors of the [Holocaust]," she said.

For Freedman, that distortion is linked both to a general and growing ignorance about the Holocaust.

"It's a lack of knowledge, it's a lack of education and it's a wilful ignorance of understanding the complexities of history," she said.

That's particularly true when it comes to hospital protesters comparing themselves to Frank, who's believed to have died of typhus.

"The irony of this is that Anne Frank perished from a treatable disease," Freedman said.

Increasingly, politicians are speaking out against such comparisons, too.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson called them "unbelievable and appalling."

"Please think about the millions of Jews and others murdered and tortured and stop using this analogy," he wrote on Twitter last week.

"I really wish there was a way that we could stop it from happening, but I don't think that the criminal law is at current equipped to be able to do that," said Greenspon.

At the commemoration on Tuesday, several speakers alluded to a key lesson of the Holocaust: that such evil is only made possible when others look away. For that reason, Freedman says everyone has a duty to denounce such comparisons.

"We can't stay silent," she said. "That is one of the lessons of the Holocaust, is you can't stay silent."