OTTAWA –
Former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was in contact with a key organizer of the protest against the Freedom Convoy mandate, providing strategic advice before and after the Ottawa occupation began.
“Your group will likely be provoked by the counter-protesters and it’s so important that they don’t take the bait,” Wall said in a text message he sent to Saskatchewan truck driver Chris Barber on Feb. 2, according to court records.
“It is also really important that any of those who try to hitch their wagon to this convoy with ulterior motives and casual messages – particularly racist stuff – are openly and strongly condemned by the organisers.”
Wall cited as an example another protest organizer who was later criminally charged, Pat King, who commented in a Facebook video about the Anglo-Saxon replacement theory.
Barber’s communication with Wall was recorded in phone records obtained by Ottawa police in their investigation into criminal charges against the truck driver, who was arrested on Feb. 17.
Barber is currently charged, along with protest organizer Tamara Leach, with intimidation, obstructing a peace officer and mischief, among other charges in connection with the three-week occupation. He is currently out on bail in Saskatchewan awaiting trial.
Reached by CTV News on Monday, Wall declined to comment on his contact with Barber, saying, “I know him from Swift Current. He is related and I would like to keep this confidential and personal.
A document described as a draft analysis of Barber’s mobile phone scan data with a Universal Forensic Retrieval Device was entered into Crown evidence ahead of Leach’s retrial hearing tomorrow, on a new charge that she breached her previous release conditions under warranty .
The data logs include 26 text messages between Wall and Barber and four phone calls between them totaling more than 29 minutes.
In one text, Wall suggested the convoy was declaring a “victory of sorts” after some provinces began easing measures against COVID-19.
“I think the convoy creates some freedom for the provinces to start moving away from mandates etc,” he wrote on February 2.
Wall also suggested the convoy use the money raised through GoFundMe donations as a “final statement of success” and donate to veterans groups, the Salvation Army and food banks.
On the same date, he asked Barber: “Do you feel that it might be time to declare victory and end the occupation?”
He also told Barber his daughter lived in Ottawa and provided the cellphone number of her friend, who said he was willing to help with deliveries.
In one exchange, they discuss what Barber sees as unfair coverage of the protest by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“I do not watch or follow CBC,” Wall wrote. “It’s bad for my health.”
Their communication appeared to have ended on February 7, a week before the federal government invoked the Emergency Act to end the protest, which shut down the city and closed several key border crossings.
Wall served as Premier of Saskatchewan from 2007 to 2018. He is currently listed as special counsel in the Calgary office of the law firm Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt.
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