OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Testimony indicates that the truckers’ Freedom Convoy fundraising initiatives were shut down last month as a result of claims from Ottawa’s mayor to GoFundMe executives that the protesters were committing violent acts.
According to a Blacklock’s Reporter report, Ottawa mayor Jim Watson’s office told GoFundMe that neighborhood allegations claimed truckers were committing acts of violence and damage to personal property.
GoFundMe lawyer Kim Wilford said at a House of Commons public safety committee last week that they had “reached out” to Watson’s office regarding the Freedom Convoy. Wilford said they received “credible, consistent information from members of law enforcement and members of the Mayor’s Office.”
Wilford added that they “heard” there were issues “around violence, harassment, damage,” so they decided to reassess “the campaign.”
Wilford then said that they discussed the information provided to them from Watson’s office regarding claims of “acts of violence, damage, destruction and harassment,” and this was enough for them to decide to remove “this (the Freedom Convoy’s GoFundMe page) from our platform.”
However, most of the 197 Freedom Convoy protesters were charged with mischief.
Police records indicate that only two men were charged with what could be deemed serious offenses, carrying a hidden weapon and uttering threats, but those two were not members of the actual convoy, said Blacklock’s Reporter.
The Freedom Convoy’s original GoFundMe page was canceled on February 4 after raising more than $10 million. The group subsequently started a GiveSendGo page as a result. However, both Canadian and U.S. mainstream media outlets came under fire for using hacked information from the truckers’ GiveSendGo list to dox donors who contributed to the cause.
Government officials in Canada had attempted to freeze donations on GiveSendGo.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Patrick Champagne, Watson’s press secretary, claimed that before the mayor met with GoFundMe on February 3, “fights had already broken out, residents were being harassed and masks were being ripped off citizens.”
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Wilford said that she did not have “any direct discussions with members of law enforcement,” but that some from their team “did engage with them.”
Despite the Public Safety committee asking for Ottawa authorities to appear for questioning, to date city police have refused to do so.
Many Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MPs came out in support of the Freedom Convoy truckers, who stayed put for nearly three weeks in Ottawa and did not leave until being ousted by force by the police, who used the Emergencies Act (EA) as justification.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the unprecedented step of invoking the Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, claiming he needed it to deal with the Freedom Convoy. The demonstrators had been in Ottawa for the past three weeks protesting COVID mandates.
Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.
Trudeau had earlier called the truckers a “fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views.” The reality however was that Freedom Convoy protesters were overwhelmingly peaceful.
As for Watson, he formerly served as a provincial Liberal cabinet minister and is also a long-time Liberal organizer.
According to the Blacklock’s Reporter, Ontario CPC MP Doug Shipley said to the public safety committee last week that he did not witness any of the truckers’ committing acts of violence or destruction.
Shipley said that all MPs were “given briefings” regarding the convoy protesters in Ottawa but “nowhere ever did I see in any of the reports shared that there was violence, threatening behaviour and damage and destruction.”
Countless social media streams showed a peaceful crowd throughout the three-week demonstration.
However, Wilford claimed that after speaking to the mayor, they heard of “reports of harassment, violence, damage occurring.”
“Based on this credible information we made informed decisions that this campaign no longer complied with our terms of service and we removed it from the platform,” Wilford said.
Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino claimed last week at the Public Safety committee meeting that some of the Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa made rape threats.
Mendicino told the committee that lack of criminal charges against the protesters “doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
Two of the main Freedom Convoy organizers, Pat King and Tamara Lich, are still in jail, after being denied bail.
Recently, a top director for Canada’s official money regulator admitted that those who donated to the truckers’ Freedom Convoy just wanted to support the “cause,” adding that the contributions had nothing to do with financing “terrorism.”
Canadian Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland admitted the reason some Freedom Convoy supporters’ bank accounts were frozen under the EA was to “convince” donors to “listen to reason.”
She then said that some accounts will stay locked while promising others would be unfrozen.