Grifter

But don't take my word for it:

The woman who went to court to get an injunction against the "Freedom Convoy" last year faced the protest organizers in criminal court Monday in some of the most combative lines of questioning the trial has seen so far.

Zexi Li took the stand against Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who are accused mischief and counselling others to commit mischief for their role in leading the protest, among other charges.

The courtroom was unusually crowded Monday as Li took the stand. She kept her composure in the witness box during the cross-examination.

Early in her evidence, defence lawyers challenged Li's use of the word "occupation" to describe the protest, in which big-rigs, trucks and large crowds of people blocked streets in downtown Ottawa for weeks.

"I object by the continuous use of the word 'occupation,'" Chris Barber's lawyer Diane Magas said.

“It’s very irritating to my ears.”

Magas said the word was inflammatory, especially because Li is "quite invested."

Li is the lead plaintiff in a proposed $290-million class-action lawsuit against convoy organizers on behalf of downtown Ottawa residents, workers and business owners.

The suit alleges people downtown suffered as thousands of protesters took over city streets with trucks and big-rigs for three weeks.

Lich and Barber are both named defendants in that lawsuit.

Judge Heather Perkins-McVey told Li she would prefer her to use the words "protest" or "demonstration," but said "what she says is up to her."

Like several other witnesses who testified before her, Li described the excessive noise from vehicles honking their horns "for most of the day, if not all day."

"It was difficult to live as a human being," she testified.

On the second week of the protest, Li went to court and got an injunction against the horn-honking. She said the honking became less constant after that, but she would still hear periods of what she called "collective honking" where it sounded like all the horns went off at once for a period of time.

The Crown intends to prove that Lich and Barber had influence over the crowds.

Under cross-examination, Li said she could only recall the date of one specific example of the collective honking on Feb. 7, 2022. She couldn't say how long the honking lasted.