[…] National Telegraph […]
Written By Wyatt Claypool, Posted on April 9, 2022
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), despite already having to make multiple retractions on articles attacking the Freedom Convoy, has put out a new report claiming that almost $8 million dollars from the Freedom Convoy 2022 organization has gone missing.
The CBC pieces together several separate and incomplete reports, collected by KSV Restructuring Inc, in order to claim that large sums of money were left unaccounted for, despite their being publicly available information, or individuals, which/who would explain the disparity they claimed to have found.
The CBC rightfully explains that the money released by GoFundMe to the Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers, before it was shut down upon the request of Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, is being held in escrow (the money is frozen in custody but still accessible to lawyers) pending a court challenge.
What the CBC gets majorly wrong is that they then say that $7.75 million released from the Christian crowdfunding website GiveSendGo is “unaccounted for” in spite of court documents and GiveSendGo explaining its whereabouts. Even if someone wanted to, it would have been next to impossible to hide the funds GiveSendGo did release as the Freedom Convoy 2022 organization’s account had been frozen shortly after receiving the funds.
Although GiveSenGo refused to speak to the CBC about the total amount of money reimbursed to donors to the Freedom Convoy 2022 campaign, as the writer of this article and donor to the GiveSendGo campaign I can attest to the fact I was given back $32 out of the $65 I donated to the campaign, which is nearly 50 percent of my contribution.
The other half of the funds that GiveSendGo did not reimburse were released to the organizers, according to court documents, and are also being held in an escrow account, it is not missing as the CBC claims.
For more information on the GiveSendGo, one of the cofounders of the platform appeared on Viva Frei’s show where he discussed the freezing of funds and where the GoFundMe money currently is located.
Finally, the CBC includes the Freedom Convoy 2022’s $1.1 million Bitcoin donations into the “unaccounted for” funds which they claim “most still evades capture” which fundamentally misunderstands how Bitcoin works.
Bitcoin does not “evade” capture, it is a decentralized currency that cannot be accessed by the government or financial institutions. If a holder leaves their Bitcoin on a public exchange then it can be seized, but Bitcoin is only on exchanges briefly when users do peer-to-peer trades. Other than that unless a Bitcoin holder voluntarily gives over their wallet information, or is pressured into doing it, it is virtually unreachable.
In the case of the Freedom Convoy 2022, $419,316 worth of Bitcoin was voluntarily handed over into escrow after police raided the home of Nicholas St. Louis (known as ‘Caribou’ by Bitcoiners), the lead volunteer from the Bitcoin community, and seized his computer.
The rest of the Bitcoin the CBC claims went “unaccounted for” was handed out to truckers in newly created wallets that each had $8,000 worth of Bitcoin in them. The CBC is wrong to claim this money is missing as the whole point of Bitcoin is to not be public in the first place, and used to get money to people like the truckers, who are having their accounts unlawfully frozen.
There may be some cash donations and Bitcoin donations that are still not fully accounted for, but the CBC’s claim that $8 million dollars are missing is completely wrong. It is fairly well known by those who have been following the Freedom Convoy that the vast majority of money not paid back to donors is sitting in escrow, pending trials, but the CBC is using incomplete information to pretend as if $8 million worth of donations are currently missing.
Wyatt is a student at Mount Royal University, where he is the president of its Campus Conservative club. In his writing, he focuses on covering provincial and federal politics, firearms regulation, and the energy sector. Wyatt has also previously written for The Post Millennial.
[…] National Telegraph […]
A well written report. Thanks for your effort. It raises awareness.
[…] National Telegraph […]
November 24, 2024
November 11, 2024
The Convoy protests have scared the poop out of the swamp in Ottawa, in particular the lefty swamp dwellers. The fact that the protests, which they figured would die on the vine, and be smeared by the bought and paid for media, would be a quick flash in the pan. However, when they suddenly generated 10 million, which was seized then another 10 plus million in about a week, scared the dickens out of them. Their political party struggles for months to generate 1 or 2 million for the party, and these upstarts get 10 times as much in a week or so, that shows they have vast support,