Trudeau & Singh provided false statements about Trucker GoFundMe
by Dan Fournier, published Monday, Nov. 21, 2022 at 14:25 EST on fournier.substack.com
Photo taken in Ottawa on February 12, 2022 by Maksim Sokolov. Source: Wikimedia Commons
In a Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency session from Nov. 17, MP Conservative MP Larry Brock asked GoFundMe’s general counsel Kim Wilford whether she agreed that there was “no evidence that any of the funds originating to your platform were proceeds of crime,” to which she replied “That is correct.”
As a refresher, on January 14 the Freedom Convoy 2022 fundraiser was launched on the GoFundMe platform. But due to interventions by Canadian authorities, the campaign was paused on February 2.
Part of the reasons for suspending the campaign included conversations with police chiefs Peter Sloly and Steve Bell along with Ottawa mayor Jim Watson who had stated that the protests where “no longer deemed peaceful”, affirmed Wilford. Bell and Watson told them that citizens were being harassed, hotel rooms trashed, and the like. Regarding these claims, Rhéal Fortin from the Bloc Québécois pressed Wilford on whether there were any investigations about these events to which she responded “I am not aware of any [such] police investigations.”
Wilford also reiterated that 88 percent of the funds donated to the trucker convoy through GoFundMe originated in Canada; and, specifically, of the [roughly] 133,000 donors, 14,000 originated in the United States, 4,000 (only 3%) from 80 other countries.
Brock also touched upon the amount of misinformation that was circulating at the time about possible Russian involvement, including a Liberal MP who had suggested that there was a “Russia connection.”
At a prior inquiry into the matter a question had been put to Mr. Juan Benitez, President of GoFundMe, by a Conservative member asking if it “uncovered any connection between the illegal protest and the Russian government” to which he responded that “only 12% of donations came from outside of Canada and there was virtually only perhaps a handful of donations from Russia.” Brock asked Ms. Wilford whether she agreed that only a “handful” of donations could have come from Russia to which she said “Yes, I do.”
Wilford also denied any involvement at all by China for the campaign.
Part of the misinformation Brock referred to was the CBC’s Power & Politics broadcast from January 28 in which the host interviewed the Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino and suggested that Russian actors may have instigated the protest from its onset.
Several complaints were submitted about this broadcast and the CBC regarding its speculatory nature and lack of substantiating evidence.
A review buy the broadcaster’s ombudsman found that the CBC had breached its own journalistic standards (JSP) and had not provided sufficient context, attribution, and context in their reporting.
In a February 9 parliamentary session, NPD leader Jagmeet Singh affirmed “we know that a significant portion of the funding for this convoy is from foreign U.S. dollars,” with Prime Minster Justin Trudeau then adding “we are working very hard with partners at different levels of government to make sure that the flow of funds through criminal activities is interdicted.”
Yet, a briefing provided by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to senior officials at different levels of government on February 6 (three days earlier) confirmed there was no foreign involvement (including funding) in the Freedom Convoy protest, in contrast to claims made by federal cabinet ministers, according to the Epoch Times.
Trudeau and Singh have yet to backtrack on those comments.
Notes:
This article is also published in The Counter Signal and tweeted by their editor-in-chief Keean Bexte.