The Ontario government is further being accused of suppressing civil liberties and the right to organize a protest after it has announced that it has successfully petitioned a court to freeze access to the millions of dollars donated to the Freedom Convoy through free speech fundraising platform GiveSendGo.
GiveSendGo is the alternative US-based fundraising platform that came to the rescue after GoFundMe pulled the plug on donations to the Freedom Convoy protesters who are campaigning for civil liberties in Ottawa and at multiple border crossings.
A spokesperson for Premier Doug Ford says Ontario’s Attorney General submitted the application to the Superior Court of Justice, requesting that it be illegal to distribute donations made through GiveSendGo’s two crowdfunding campaigns, the “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Adopt-a-Trucker.”
The full statement is as follows:
“Today, the Attorney General brought an application in the Superior Court of Justice for an order pursuant to section 490.8 of the Criminal Code prohibiting any person from disposing of, or otherwise dealing with, in any manner whatsoever, any and all monetary donations made through the Freedom Convoy 2022 and Adopt-a-Trucker campaign pages on the GiveSendGo online fundraising platform.
“This afternoon, the order was issued. It binds any and all parties with possession or control over these donations.”
Ford’s office said that an order binding “any and all parties with possession or control over these donations” has been granted and issued.
GiveSendGo is now being described as an “offense-related property” as described in 490.8 of the Criminal Code.
Civil liberties protestors have faced an uphill battle, with the Canadian government trying to suppress the protest in several ways.
More than $10 million was originally raised through GoFundMe, a platform that has been accused of bias and selectively enforcing its policies.
Donors have raised over $8.4 million on GiveSendGo at the time of writing.
