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OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – After testimony from Canadian bankers showed the financial targeting of some Freedom Convoy supporters might have breached privacy laws, Members of Parliament (MP) from the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) are demanding that a federal privacy overseer look into the matter.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Canada’s federal Privacy Commissioner is being asked to determine whether the freezing of bank accounts complied with an Act of Parliament.
The bankers’ testimony suggested the financial blacklisting of Freedom Convoy supporters may have breached Canada’s Privacy Act, said CPC MP Adam Chambers.
“Institutions received no instruction on how to properly store, keep or use the data received from the RCMP,” Chambers wrote in a letter to the Privacy Commissioner.
Chambers noted how there were “no limits placed or instructions provided regarding how receiving institutions may use or rely on data received even after the Act’s use had expired.”
He also wrote that no “instructions were provided on how long data was to be stored or a defined time period after which data should be destroyed.”
Canada’s draconian COVID measures were the catalyst for the Freedom Convoy, which took to the streets of Ottawa to demand an end to all COVID mandates for three weeks in February. As a result, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 14 enacted the Emergencies Act to shut down the Freedom Convoy.
Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23 after protesters had been cleared out.
Over 230 people were arrested during the Freedom Convoy crackdown. Also, the Trudeau government took the unprecedented step of freezing the bank accounts of hundreds who donated to and sympathized with the truckers to the tune of almost $8 million.
Chambers noted that there appeared to have been no instruction or “restriction” on whom or “how many individuals within a receiving institution may have access to the data.”
“What was the information shared with receiving institutions: name, address, date of birth, Social Insurance Number, other identifying information, information about alleged offences,” Chambers wrote.
“How many individuals had private personal details and alleged activities shared?”
Last month, a bipartisan group of Canadian MPs investigating the use of the EA against the Freedom Convoy said such a crackdown should never happen again.
Also last month, one of the main leaders of the trucker Freedom Convoy said he received an apology from the head office of Scotiabank for freezing his bank account due to his involvement with the protests.
In early May, Canada’s Department of Finance during testimony at the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of the EA noted that it never validated whether or not bank account freezes were warranted.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Canadian Bankers Association noted in March that those who had their bank accounts frozen or flagged would for life have “something in the file indicating a freeze had taken place.”
After news broke that the Trudeau government was freezing bank accounts, millions were withdrawn from Canadian banks in only a short order of time.
Trudeau’s use of EA to quash the Freedom Convoy resulted in multiple lawsuits against the government for what civil liberty lawyers and opposition politicians say was an “excessive” abuse of power.
Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich was denied bail last Friday by Ottawa Justice of the Peace Paul Harris and will stay jailed until at least July 25.
Canadian mainstream media, including the CBC, was caught spreading fake news stories about the Freedom Convoy.
The CBC had to retract a story that falsely claimed most support for the Freedom Convoy came from foreigners. Trudeau himself used this narrative as a basis for triggering the Emergencies Act.
This came after the CBC had earlier retracted a story that falsely claimed Russia was behind the Freedom Convoy.