The trial for the leaders of the so-called Freedom Convoy protest that gridlocked Canada’s capital for weeks in 2022 began on Tuesday.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber each face counts of mischief and obstructing police.
The two were part of a group that led a convoy of lorries to Ottawa to protest against Covid-19 measures and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
Experts say the outcome of the trial could reverberate beyond the courts.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The main charge that Ms Lich and Mr Barber will have to defend is that of mischief, defined under Canadian law as the wilful destruction, damaging, obstruction, or interference of property.
Separate protests also blocked a key US-Canada border crossing near Detroit, angering the White House and disrupting the flow of goods.
They came to an end after Mr Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act - the first time the Canadian law has been used - which allowed police to clear the streets and the government to impose bans on public assembly and freeze the bank accounts of protesters.
In Tuesday’s opening remarks, Crown prosecutor Tim Radcliffe accused the two of directing people to Ottawa and asking them to stay and “hold the line”.
But during a July bail hearing, an Ontario court judge said that due to this “very unusual case, there is significant uncertainty about the degree to which she will be held culpable for the assortment of alleged bad acts committed over many weeks by various persons in a crowd of thousands”.
Both Ms Lich and Mr Barber, along with other named organisers, are facing a separate C$300m ($222m; £175m) civil lawsuit brought against them by Ottawa residents over the disruptions in the city.
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