Convoy organizers want Ottawa police board to pay any damages in class action

If downtown Ottawa residents and businesses who say they suffered through loud honking and diesel fumes during the self-styled «Freedom Convoy» are awarded any money in their ongoing class action against organizers of the 2022 protest, the convoy organizers want Ottawa's police board to pay it.

It's a potentially big tab for the Ottawa Police Services Board that governs the force and approves its budgets. The plaintiffs in the Zexi Li class action, which has not yet been certified, are seeking $290 million.

Lawyers for Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and 10 other defendants in the class action have filed a third-party claim against the police board. It was issued by Superior Court this week.

They allege the police response to the protest was negligent and that because of the force's negligence, the police board should be on the hook for any losses or damages.

They claim that except for «a small number» of fewer than 40 tractor-trailers on Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill, there was no plan to clog Ottawa's downtown with vehicles.

According to the claim, it was Ottawa police who directed them to park on residential downtown streets.

Police 'decided to change the plan'

The original plan was to stage the vehicles on Wellington and on «lengthy designated stretches» of the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway (now renamed Kichi Zībī Mīkan) to the west and the Sir George-Étienne Cartier Parkway to the east, the claim states.

«But for some reason, the Ottawa police decided to change the plan,» said James Manson, one of the lawyers representing the convoy organizers, this week.

«And so our argument will be that if that had not taken place, if the trucks had parked where they all had understood they were going to park, then there wouldn't