Ontario judge rejects bid to seize Chris Barber’s ‘Big Red’ truck

A judge has blocked the government’s attempt to seize “Big Red,” the semi-truck owned by Freedom Convoy protester Chris Barber.

Source: Facebook

A judge has blocked the government’s attempt to seize “Big Red,” the semi-truck owned by Freedom Convoy protester Chris Barber, ruling against the use of a civil forfeiture tool usually reserved for major crimes like drug trafficking.

Justice Heather Perkins-McVey of the Ontario Court of Justice dismissed the Crown’s civil forfeiture application on December 19, deeming the proposed seizure “disproportionate” to Barber’s conviction for mischief and counselling others to breach a court order related to the anti-COVID-19 mandate demonstration.

Big Red, a 2004 Kenworth long-haul truck, is the backbone of Barber’s Swift Current–based business, CB Trucking. He drove it to Ottawa as part of the convoy and parked it on Wellington Street near the Supreme Court from January 29 to February 8, 2022.

Barber repeatedly referenced the truck in messages promoting the convoy and still operates a website selling Big Red-themed merchandise.

The Crown argued the truck was “offence-related property” tied to Barber’s participation in the 2022 protests against the Trudeau government’s COVID mandates.

However, court filings note Barber followed police instructions regarding where to park the truck and moved it when requested, “as such Big Red was not used in the commission of the offence of mischief.”

Barber and co-organizer Tamara Lich were convicted in April 2025 of mischief for their roles in the protest; Barber was also convicted of counselling others to disobey a court order prohibiting horn use.

The weeks-long protest was non-violent and decentralized.

In her October 7 sentencing decision, Perkins-McVey described it as “non-violent, but not peaceful.”

Despite that, prosecutors sought prison sentences of eight years for Barber and seven for Lich — a request the judge called “extraordinary, in fact unprecedented.”

“The Crown argues that there is no real precedent in terms of sentencing for a mischief of this nature, scope and magnitude,” Perkins-McVey remarked before imposing far lighter conditional sentences for both.

Instead of prison, Barber received an 18-month conditional sentence and Lich 15.5 months, after credit for time in custody. Conditions included 12 months of house arrest, curfews and 100 hours of community service each.

But that did not end Barber’s legal battles.

“I’ll see you again in November,” the judge said at the close of sentencing, referring to the civil forfeiture case involving Big Red.

Civil forfeiture laws in Canada allow provinces to target property linked to criminal activity without a criminal conviction, often in cases involving organized crime or major drug operations.

In British Columbia, for instance, authorities are pursuing forfeiture of a rural property in Falkland that housed what RCMP called the largest and most sophisticated drug superlab in Canadian history.

According to defence lawyer Diane Magas, who represented Barber in his criminal trial, the court ultimately found the forfeiture application “disproportionate.”

However, in denying forfeiture, the court also found Spring Bank Farms Inc. — a company owned by Barber’s parents and the registered owner of the truck since June 2022 — to be “complicit” in Barber’s mischief, a conclusion that allowed the Crown to avoid paying legal costs.

Another of Barber’s lawyers, Brendan Miller, called that finding “entirely absurd” in a post on X.

“The only basis for ‘complicity’ was that Barber’s parents sent their son some money while he was in Ottawa,” Miller wrote, calling the theory an invention of law “that does not exist” and a way to shield the Crown from accountability after pursuing what he described as an innocent third party.

Constitutional lawyer Eva Chipiuk was equally blunt in her own X post, arguing the outcome still “crossed a line.”

Chipiuk warned the approach undermines public confidence in the justice system, calling the forfeiture bid “pure lawfare” that never should have been brought.

“This is what ‘must win at all costs’ looks like,” she said. “Innocent family members are dragged into court, the state avoids accountability, and the overreach carries on as though none of this matters.”