Conservative Candidate Used a Secret Signal Group Chat With Freedom Convoy Leaders, Right-Wing Media and Far-Right Influencers

One of Pierre Poilievre’s high-profile Conservative candidates was a member of a secret group chat used by Freedom Convoy leaders and their lawyers to coordinate messages on social media with right-wing alternative media personalities and far-right social media influencers.

The group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, is called “Canada Freedom Rights Movement” and includes over 50 names associated with the Freedom Convoy and the Canadian far-right.

The group chat was first created around the time of the Emergencies Act Inquiry but remains operational today.

Signal group chat

Messages obtained by PressProgress suggest the group chat was created to give convoy leaders and their lawyers the ability to coordinate “media messaging / comms strategy” with “alt media / influencers,” who were cautioned that the “language we use … is incredibly important.”

An 88-page document with instructions on messaging and narrative control was made available to the alt media personalities and influencers by a lawyer with the right-wing Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. Numerous group chat messages show its members exchanging information, debating ways to counter anti-convoy narratives and identifying tweets to share and amplify.

The group chat’s description identifies itself as a “clandestine” group and new members are warned to “remember the first rule of Fight Club.”

Signal group chat

The group chat lists two admins: Eva Chipiuk, a former Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms lawyer who represented convoy leaders at the Emergencies Act Inquiry, and Bethan Nodwell, a convoy organizer with ties to neo-Nazis and European far-right political actors.

The member list also includes the names of key Freedom Convoy figures, including convoy leaders Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and Tom Marazzo, as well as convoy lawyer Keith Wilson.

It also includes the names of dozens of far-right social media influencers and right-wing alternative media personalities from outlets like True North, Western Standard and Rebel Media.

Another name that appears on the list is currently running for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in the Southwestern Ontario riding of Elgin – St. Thomas – London South: Andrew Lawton.

Signal group chat

Lawton is a right-wing alt media personality and former managing editor of True North who most recently chronicled the life and times of Pierre Poilievre as the Conservative leader’s biographer.

In 2018, Lawton ran a failed campaign under Doug Ford’s Ontario PCs that was derailed by his history of controversial statements and extreme positions on a variety of sensitive issues like abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, Islamophobia and defending on-campus debates about Holocaust denialism.

On Signal, Lawton was among the group chat’s most active members. In a number of cases during the Emergencies Act Inquiry in October 2022, tweets that appeared on Lawton’s Twitter feed could be traced back to conversations that originally began inside the secret group chat.

Signal group chat

Other messages show Lawton collaborating with and responding to suggestions from convoy lawyers.

In one October 2022 exchange, convoy lawyer Eva Chipiuk asked the group chat if someone “can get a clip out” from the testimony of Ottawa City Councillors Mathieu Fleury and Catherine McKenney.

“On it,” Lawton replied to the group chat.

15 minutes later, Lawton tweeted out the video clip in question with True North’s branding along with text aligned with the convoy lawyer’s suggested messaging.

“Here you go Eva Chipiuk,” Lawton reported back. “Thank you sir,” Chipiuk replied.

Signal group chat

Neither Lawton nor the Conservative Party of Canada responded to requests for comment prior to publication about the candidate’s involvement in the Signal group chat, or whether Poilievre remains confident in Lawton as his candidate.

Several individuals whose names appear on the member list confirmed to PressProgress that they were active members of the group chat. The Signal accounts of a number of its members also connect to their real phone numbers.

Benita Pedersen, an energetic convoy organizer, confirmed being in the group chat, describing it as a “terrific way to get organized” and “share information.”

“I love being part of group chats,” Pedersen told PressProgress. “I guess one of the challenges I have is that I’m part of too many group chats.”

Rupa Subramanya, one of Lawton’s former True North colleagues, confirmed she too was also a member of the Signal group chat between October 2022 and November 2024, recalling Lawton was particularly “very active” in the group chat.

“I was just added to the group and I thought at first it would be a useful resource,” Subramanya told PressProgress, adding she eventually put the group chat on “mute” because she felt it became “completely useless.”

“There are a handful of messages I posted there mostly promoting stuff I was saying on social media,” Subramanya explained. “It was not a Signal chat group that Mike Waltz added me to or anything.”

In addition to coordinating messaging and social media content, the group chat also shows its members repeatedly mocking Ottawa residents for objecting to the Freedom Convoy’s three-week occupation of the city.

Eva Chipiuk, one of the convoy leader’s lawyers at the Emergency Act Inquiry, circulated a conspiratorial video claiming Ottawa resident Zexi Li is a Chinese “psy-op,” variously mocking the inquiry witness as an “alluring, young sexually viable TikTok hottie” and as “Ottawa’s Jeanne d’Arc.”

Signal group chat

Since leaving the group chat, Subramanya says she has learned “several of those people in that group” are “outright bigots.” Subramanya pointed to Bethan Nodwell, one of the group chat’s admins, as a “rabid antisemite bigot” who sent her “vile tweets mocking Hinduism.”

Evan Balgord, Executive Director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, notes the full group chat member list reads like a who’s who of right-wing media personalities and far-right activists. “Some of these people are quite extreme in my opinion,” Balgord told PressProgress.

“Bethan Nodwell, for example, is a self-identified white nationalist who has denied the Holocaust,” Balgord pointed out. “Shadoe Davis, another member of the chat, promoted the neo-Nazi Holocaust denial documentary series ‘Europa: The Last Battle’, which is a spanning piece of propaganda that blames Jewish people for starting the Second World War as part of a larger plot to lead to the foundation of Israel, while Adolf Hitler’s Nazis were merely defending themselves and Europe.”

Balgord added other names on the group chat member list are “associated with the white nationalist network Diagolon.”

The group chat member list is also notable given some of the names were under court order to have no contact with one another at the time.

Signal group chat

Both Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were released on bail under a condition that they not communicate, either “directly or indirectly” with one another. Lich was also ordered to have no contact with a third convoy leader, Tom Marazzo. The names of all three convoy leaders appear in the group chat.

Neither Lich nor Barber responded to requests for comment from PressProgress, while Marazzo replied tersely: “Don’t email me again.”

Signal group chat

Michael Spratt, a criminal defence lawyer based in Ottawa, says Lich and Barber’s presence in the group chat could potentially be construed as a breach of their bail conditions.

“The ‘non-communication’ (order) is a problem,” Spratt told PressProgress. “If you’re in a group chat with a bunch of people who you’re not supposed to be communicating with, that is direct or indirect communication.”

“There’s definitely grounds to lay a charge,” Spratt said. “I’ve seen people get charged with breaches for less.”

On Thursday, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were both convicted of criminal charges in connection with their roles in the 2022 Freedom Convoy occupation of Ottawa.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms did not respond to multiple requests for comment from PressProgress about the involvement of JCCF-affiliated lawyers running or participating in the group chat.

Update:  Following publication of this story and reporting by other media outlets, Andrew Lawton issued a public statement characterizing his involvement with the secret group chat as being purely journalistic in nature:

As a journalist covering the Public Order Emergency Commission, I was part of a group to connect with sources and share my work.

I authored the only journalistic account of the Freedom Convoy, which was cited in evidence by the Commission itself as a factual account of the…

— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) April 5, 2025