Jason Beachman Council for the nation crowdfunding and fintech association (NCFA), representing crowd funding platforms and start ups. They wanted to participate in the hearings to provide a voice to emerging industries and technologies.
They are participating to comment on the fact find view in regards to two issues set out in the reference. First is the impact of domestic and foreign funding, including donation crowdfunding platforms and second the impact, role and sources of misinformation and disinformation.
“Our hope is that through this process the commission will strive to understand whether and how misinformation and disinformation about crowd funding and crypto currency influenced the decision to make orders under the emergencies act that targeted and restricted these technologies”
The temporary orders made under the act taking aim at crowdfunding and crypto currency have been permanently put in place, laws have been created without scrutiny and due process.
The baseless allegations and misleading information and their sources
In February while the freedom convoy protest was happening, Liberal Ministers claimed the protest was being funded by foreign but provided no evidence for their allegations.
“We have seen strong evidence that it was the intention of those who blockaded our ports-of-entry in a largely foreign-funded, targeted and coordinated attack, which was clearly and criminally intended to harm Canada, to harm Canadians, to interrupt vital supply lines, to idle our workers and close our factories,” Minister Bill Blair said.
CBC News published an article on Feb. 10 titled “Convoy Protest Received Hundreds Of Donations That Appeared To Be From Abroad” and claimed that “donations identified by CBC News are likely only a fraction of all the donations made by people outside of Canada.”
The government funded broadcaster later pulled the article saying “On February 10 in a report about the protest convoy CBC Radio’s The World This Hour incorrectly said GoFundMe ended a fundraiser for the protesters over questionable donations to the group,” a statement by the public broadcaster wrote.
NDP MP Alistair MacGregor didn’t believe the $10 million fundraising on Gofundme was legitimate and claimed the crowdfunding was foreign funding.
“There are some real questions about transparency given the fact that the fund is now exceeding $10 million, many of the donors are anonymous and many of the donors are in places outside of Canada’s jurisdiction,” MacGregor told CBC News.
MacGregor pushed a motion forward to summon Gofundme to a committee meeting back in February to expose the so-called “white supremacy” and “anti-Semitism” groups that were funding the Freedom Convoy.
Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed compared the funds raised for the Truckers for Freedom Convoy to “terrorist financing”
Despite having no evidence for all these so-called “foreign funding” and “terrorist financing” claims, the Federal government invoked the Emergencies Act. In the Emergency order the government set its sights on debanking Canadians that oppose its views on Covid-19.
The Emergencies Act was invoked and Canadians same their banks account freeze. In addition to the use of the Emergencies Act, Chrystia Freeland introduced a new law. A law that bypassed all the parliamentary proceedings and due process of introducing a bill in to the HoC and votes being casted. There was no discussions or scrutiny applied to these changes.
“In invoking the Emergencies Act, we are announcing the following immediate actions: first, we are broadening the scope of Canada’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use,” said Freeland.
Freedom Convoy wasn’t foreign funded
Last winter, Gofundme and FINTRAC were heard at a HoC committee meeting and destroyed the hypothetical crime of “foreign” and “terrorist” financing.
FINTRAC’s deputy director of intelligence, Barry MacKillop, stated at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security that there were no indications that the events in Ottawa were an instance of violent extremism motivated by ideology (IMVE).
President of GoFundMe Juan Benitez then appeared at the Public Safety & National Security Committee and said “88% of donated funds originated in Canada and 86% of donors were from Canada.”
