Demand that the Freedom Convoy’s $5.5 million be returned. Send a message today

(LifeSiteNews) — Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich, who is currently on trial for her role in organizing the historic protest, says the Ontario government is withholding $5.5 million of donations raised for the movement in 2022.

In a May episode of the conservative-leaning podcast “Stand on Guard,” Lich told host David Krayden that $5.5 million Freedom Convoy donations given through GiveSendGo are currently frozen by the Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Ontario government.

“It’s locked up in an escrow I think,” Lich said. “There’s about $5.5 million that are locked up in an escrow seized by the Government of Ontario.” 

“They have a seizure order on it, as well as a forfeiture order on it,” she explained. “So I mean, the outcome of our criminal trial is definitely going to affect that.” 

Currently, Lich is being tried for her involvement in the Freedom Convoy which featured thousands of Canadians gathering in downtown Ottawa to call for an end to COVID regulations and vaccine mandates in the winter of 2022.  

At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had disparaged unvaccinated Canadians, saying those opposing his measures were a “small, fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views” and do not “represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other.”  

While the trial is still ongoing, Lich promised that if the donations are ever returned, “we’ll do what we said we were going to do, we’ve got registration forms, from some of the truckers and people that were in Ottawa, to reimburse them, as well.” 

“As you know, we always wanted to donate what was ever left over to the veterans, that was always our goal,” she continued.  

The funds became unavailable to the Freedom Convoy when a court order froze the GiveSendGo account while the convoy was still ongoing. Shortly after, the GiveSendGo’s website was hacked and the donors’ private information was leaked to the public. 

As the protestors refused to give up despite their low funds and the freezing Canadian winter, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act (EA) for the first time in Canadian history.   

Among the measures taken under the EA was freezing bank accounts of Canadians who donated to the protest.   

Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23 after the protesters had been cleared out. At the time, seven of Canada’s 10 provinces opposed Trudeau’s use of the EA.  

Eventually, Trudeau’s use of the EA was ruled to have violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley. 

According to the January ruling, the EA is meant to be reserved as a last resort if all other means fail. In Mosley’s judgement, this threshold was not met and thus, the Trudeau government violated the rights of Canadians.  

Shortly after the ruling, Trudeau announced that he would be appealing to the Federal Court of Appeal, where he has appointed 10 of the 15 judges.

Demand that the Freedom Convoy’s $5.5 million be returned. Send a message today