The Ontario government has secured a court order to freeze access to millions of dollars donated to the Freedom Convoy through crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo.
Premier Doug Ford’s office said in a statement Thursday evening that the attorney general brought an application to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice under Section 490.8 of the Criminal Code of Canada.
This application, said the premier’s office, sought to prohibit people from “disposing of, or otherwise dealing with” donations made through the Freedom Convoy and Adopt-A-Trucker pages on GiveSendGo.
“This afternoon, the order was issued,” said the premier’s office in a statement on Thursday. “It binds any and all parties with possession or control over these donations.”
The Freedom Convoy’s organizers and lawyer were not immediately available for comment although spokesperson Benjamin Dichter did joke about the GiveSendGo being frozen in a tweet.
“This is good for #bitcoin,” he said.
On Thursday evening, GiveSendGo responded by saying “Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds.”
The crowdfunding platform assured users that “all funds for EVERY campaign on GiveSendGo flow directly to the recipients of those campaigns.”
A crowdfunding page for the Freedom Convoy was set up on GiveSendGo after GoFundMe canceled the original fundraiser.
The GiveSendGo page had raised $8.5 million US as of Thursday, the Freedom Convoy’s 19th day.
