A lawsuit which resulted in truckers in the Canada Freedom Convoy in Ottawa being prohibited from honking their horns during the ongoing protest over the nation's vaccine mandate was brought by a Chinese national and government employee.
On Monday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean granted a temporary 10-day injunction which banned the horn honking and air horn blowing that has been sounding through downtown Ottawa since the convoy arrived in the Canadian capital on Jan. 28.
The judge said the horns had interfered with “citizens’ right to quiet.”
The plaintiff in the case is 21-year-old Ottawa resident Zexi Li. Identified as a "public servant," the youthful heroine of left-leaning Canadian media reports also has views on politics and strategy.
Li is on board with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision not to meet with Convoy leaders, she told a "digital multi-skilled journalist" for Ottawa's CTV.
"I fully agree that these people cannot be negotiated with,” she said.
Lauren Witzke, executive producer for the Stew Peters show and former Delaware Senate candidate noted of Li on Telegram: "Chinese foreign nationals aren't just affecting policy in the White House."
Legal representation told the court that Li has measured the noise in her apartment at more than 80 decibels, which was likened to “having a lawn mower running in her living room, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Li filed a lawsuit in Ontario Superior Court seeking damages for emotional and mental distress, headaches, sleeping difficulties, difficulty concentrating and interference with quiet enjoyment of her home.
While Li, a Chinese national, is the only person named in the case, the $9.8-million class action is open to as many as 6,000 downtown residents who live in or close to the Freedom Convoy's “red zone.”
“I live by the words, ‘I can make it through anything,’ ” Li said before Monday’s hearing. “But I know a lot of people aren’t able to and my heart just hurts the most for them. I’m not seeking confrontation, but I am seeking justice for the people they’re harming every single day they’re here. It’s confrontation out of necessity.”
Li added: “There is a peaceful way to protest. This is not it. The way they’re going about it delegitimizes their cause and, in fact, causes more irreparable harm to the people they say they’re trying to fight for. They really do need to recognize the damage they're doing by being here and participating in it.”
The named defendants in the horn-honking case are the convoy’s organizers: Chris Barber of Swift Current, Sask., Benjamin Dichter of Toronto, Tamara Lich of Medicine Hat, Alta., and Patrick King of Red Deer, Alta. Another 60 “John Does” — drivers of semi-trucks in the protest who may later be identified as having taken part in the noise-making.
Lawyer Keith Wilson of the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom, who represented three of the four named defendants, said the protest was a matter of free expression.
“This is a spontaneous grassroots phenomena that started in Canada and is now spreading around the world in response to what we’ve all had to endure for the last two years. It’s an effort to end that harm and that hardship,” Wilson said.
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