The Banks Went After Journalist Andy Lee For Covering the Freedom Convoy

For the most part, the segment of the Canadian public that gets all of their information from the government-subsidized legacy media companies has been OK with the extra-judicial powers Justin Trudeau used to freeze the assets of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy. Even though the narrative of “domestic terrorism” was thoroughly debunked by the deputy director of FINTRAC himself in his testimony in the House of Commons, the narrative lives on – concerns about “misinformation” and/or “disinformation” be damned.

However, it wasn’t just the organizers of the convoy that were targeted by the government for debanking, journalist Andy Lee who covered the convoy got hit as well.

Andy Lee is a mother, former federal candidate, and an independent journalist who had gained a rather large Twitter following over the last year for her excellent reporting connecting the Trudeau Foundation to various Chinese Communist Party actors and organizations. Her work even triggered an investigation in the United States Senate.

At the start of the Freedom Convoy, Andy Lee was one of the rising stars of Canadian independent media with a Twitter following of thirty thousand strong and growing. However, on February 12th, 2022, her Twitter account was permanently suspended without any reason or offending Tweets being presented. She still has not been granted an appeal by Twitter.

Of note, another independent journalist, Mark Slapinski, was removed from Twitter at the exact same time as Andy in the exact same fashion. Both of them were in Ottawa covering the convoy.  They carpooled as they covered the convoy. What are the odds of that?

What happened to Andy Lee goes far beyond the standard big tech censorship story.  When Trudeau and the Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act, Andy Lee started having trouble with multiple financial institutions.

PayPal cancelled her account. After talking to Paypal, Andy confirmed with me that they could not provide a reason for throwing her off their platform, but they did tell her that it is permanent and there will be no further appeal.

Her Coinbase account was also shut down, as well as multiple credit cards she was using. 

The reason the banks seem to be using to justify debanking a journalist is that she was sending e-transfers in Ottawa at the time of the Freedom Convoy and they were flagging them for potential fraud. However, Andy says that this is a common method she uses for payment over the years and that she was even in Mexico earlier in the year and used e-transfers to pay for things there without issue.

If this is true, then a standard banking algorithm would not flag her for using e-transfers. 

According to Andy Lee, even now after the Emergencies Act was lifted she still has trouble sending money to people as she is still being flagged by the banks. This is directly in line with what Angelina Mason, general counsel for the Bankers Association, said in testimony to the House Finance Committee. She stated convoy supporters targeted by the government would be red-flagged for life.

When asked, “Once an account is frozen and eventually unfrozen, are there any permanent markers or indications on a client’s file that would indicate they have had their accounts previously frozen?” Mason responded, “There would be something in the file indicating a freeze had taken place.”

This is bone-chilling stuff for a Western democracy to be engaging in. Justin Trudeau may not be at the level of Vladimir Putin, who murders journalists he does not like, but freezing their bank accounts is a lot closer to Putin’s views of “press freedoms” than any Canadian Prime Minister should be.

Of course, there is no hard proof that the Liberals or RCMP gave an order to the banks along the lines of “go after Andy Lee”. However, there doesn’t need to be a vast overarching conspiracy to explain what happened to Andy Lee. She turned over a few leaves that people in power did not want to be exposed, and during the time when the government had emergency powers all it would take would be one or two people inside the PMO or another branch with the power to add a pesky journalist to the hit list they gave the banks.

They were probably emboldened with her deplatforming from Twitter and thus her hampered ability to defend herself publicly. This would not be the craziest example of the horizontal integration of high-power entities like big government, big tech, and the banks that we have seen in recent years.

What is happening to political dissidents here in Canada is a horrifying reminder of just how perilous our rights and freedoms are when the population is scared enough. So as Justin Trudeau galivants around Europe opening about authoritarianism and listening to the other side, with Canadians suffering under his regime here at home one question remains: is there a line that the man can cross that will finally wake up the Liberal supporters?