Canada Still Bent on Seizing Freedom Convoy Symbol “Big Red”
The trial that consumed Canada’s attention and taxpayer dollars has left a country divided and a family under siege. Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, faces of the Freedom Convoy, were tried in the longest mischief case in Canadian history. The courtroom drama has now shifted toward confiscating a truck that symbolizes peaceful resistance.
This story is not just legal sleight of hand; it feels like a political warning shot. The Crown seeks long sentences and now wants to take Big Red, Barber’s 2003 Kenworth, as a lesson to anyone who would stand up. From a Republican viewpoint, this reads like heavy-handed state intimidation aimed at silencing dissent.
Enemies of the state
The mischief conviction and the accompanying frenzy have been framed as a defense of public order, but the details complicate that storyline. Barber and Lich were cooperative, nonviolent, and ordinary working-class Canadians who found themselves turned into public enemies. The Crown’s push for seven- and eight-year sentences feels like punishment meant to deter protest rather than serve justice.
Justice Perkins McVey ruled that public enjoyment of Ottawa’s streets outweighed the convoy leaders’ rights to protest, even though Lich didn’t park trucks and Barber followed police directions. Sentencing is set for October 7, but meanwhile Ontario wants to seize Big Red, a truck Barber has owned since 2003 and used to feed his family and serve clients across the Prairies. Taking a tool that has been a family home and livelihood for decades crosses a line from law enforcement into confiscation of political symbols.
Barber’s rig had become a symbol of the Freedom Convoy, featured in thousands of pictures, videos, and memes, as it led the Western Canadian Convoy to Ottawa. Barber has owned and operated that truck since 2003 and put 3.4 million kilometers (roughly 2.1 million miles) on it, mostly hauling heavy agricultural equipment across his home province of Saskatchewan and picking up new equipment from factories in America for his customers.
In the 22 years Barber has owned and operated that truck, he has raised his children in it over trips too many to count, and when his dog Buddy was approaching the end of his life, the poor old dog was put down while lying on the passenger seat: Buddy’s favorite place to be.
Under the Emergencies Act the government froze bank accounts, but seizing the truck only surfaced later as a new escalation. The timing and selective nature of asset forfeiture raise honest questions about motive and proportionality. When a government moves to take a family’s workhorse in the name of deterrence, ordinary citizens should be alarmed.
Who ordered this forfeiture? The public still doesn’t have an answer that sounds credible. At hearings Det. Kari Launen claimed he voluntarily launched the seizure probe and that no one told him to do it. That claim strains belief when taken with the scale and political sensitivity of the case.
As Lich :
When asked if he had been directed by the crown to commence this investigation, the detective said he was not. He says he gets requests but it is up to him due to his lengthy career and extensive experience to decide how and when to investigate. He then volunteered that he wasn’t directed by the crown but only commenced the investigation after he’d had some meetings with the crown (in which he was definitely NOT directed by the crown).
The Invisible Man must have telepathically communicated these investigative urges into his psyche. He clarified that he was not directed but “given a task,” again by No One.
It is telling that one detective’s latitude is winked at while another officer was publicly censured for pursuing a sensitive death investigation. The pattern looks like selective encouragement of probes that align with a political aim. That kind of discretion in policing invites accusation of double standards.
Barber was still trucking last week, talking while behind the wheel of Big Red, moving heavy agricultural equipment across Saskatchewan. He told reporters his legal team dug into case law and pushed back hard in court, and that the Crown reacted badly to a vigorous defense. A normal trucking life has been warped into a drawn-out legal gauntlet by a government hungry for a symbolic victory.
Chris Barber
https://x.com/LichTamara/status/1966617360405852190
The Crown has widened its net to include Barber’s son Jonathan, questioning a 50 percent transfer of the family company after charges began. From a practical angle, transferring ownership to protect a business from ruin is not uncommon—especially when a civil suit and criminal charges threaten livelihood and legacy. That ordinary step is being recast as scheme and suspicion in an atmosphere eager to punish dissent.
Barber’s family life has been disrupted on a staggering scale, with parents and kids shuttling horses and animals while he spends months away. The trial’s travel demands have been crushing; Swift Current is over 1,800 miles from Ottawa and trips are expensive and exhausting. The human toll of legal persecution is rarely accounted for in political calculations.
Jonathan survived a horrific collision and has taken on day-to-day operations while his father navigates court and travel. Barber called him “a tough kid” and noted that family members step in to keep the business alive. That resilience is exactly what made the convoy movement so potent and what now seems to provoke punitive envy in some corridors of power.
In a online, he explained what he and his family are up against:
Because [prosecutors] are so vindictive and so hateful and so spiteful, they want more.
Our fear is right now that if the judge … throws the forfeiture out, that allows the Crown to then go back to the province of Saskatchewan at a later date and say, ‘We want that truck, and we want you to help.’ So what we’re trying to do right now is bat that right out of the bloody park, and that’s going to prolong things. We’re talking probably six months of trial. We’re talking possibly Supreme Court.
Barber endured the longest mischief trial in Canadian history and now faces forfeiture of the family truck for exercising political speech via peaceful protest. The escalation from fines and freezes to seizing a working truck reads like a message to anyone considering resistance to government overreach. From a Republican point of view, this is a cautionary tale about what happens when the state decides symbols of dissent must be crushed rather than debated.
Americans watching should take note; what started as a dispute over mandates has become a test of property rights, due process, and the limits of political punishment. If governments can quietly reorder ownership to erase uncomfortable symbols, free speech and ordinary livelihoods are at risk. Chris Barber’s fight is more than his own—it is a struggle over the right to protest without losing everything you’ve built.
