Ontario’s Government Freezes Donations for Truckers’ Protest

Canada’s truckers protest situation is gaining a lot of attention. The protest started earlier this month after Canada issued a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for truck drivers.

As the protests started, the truckers have been raising funds through fundraising platforms.

Earlier this week, GoFundMe banned the donations of the “Freedom Convoy Campaign” and refunded the $9 million raised to its donors. Because of this, protest organizers start raising funds in Bitcoin through Tallycoin platform. 

Yesterday, over $9 million have been frozen on the GiveSendGo fundraising platform, of the “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Adopt-a-Trucker” campaigns after an order from the Superior Court of Justice was granted.

This has made more people contribute with crypto donations through Tallycoin. As of today, over $930k has been donated in Bitcoin.

GiveSendGo Reacts Hours Later

As you can see below, the fundraising platform commented on its official Twitter account regarding the jurisdiction of Canada in managing the funds:

Know this! Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds here at GiveSendGo. All funds for EVERY campaign on GiveSendGo flow directly to the recipients of those campaigns, not least of which is The Freedom Convoy campaign.

— GiveSendGo (@GiveSendGo) February 11, 2022

But, Brian Lilley, a political columnist for the Toronto Sun, commented:

And this court order stops anyone in Canada from accessing the money. Withdrawing it in the US and sending it here would be a violation.
Expect a court challenge but these funds are frozen for now.

— Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) February 10, 2022

Communities Are Looking for Crypto Donations

Crypto donations in 2021 were 16 times higher than in 2020. In 2021 there were about $69.6 million in donations compared with $4.2 million in 2020.

Earlier this week, the AssangeDAO raised 17,422 ETH or about $54.2 million to free WikiLeaks’s founder Julian Assange. This represents about 78% of the crypto raised in 2021.

In December 2021, the FreeRossDAO raised 2,863 ETH in donations or about $12 million at that time. 

Crypto donations are helping people to raise funds without a central entity, such as what’s happening in Canada right now.

With decentralization, cryptocurrencies bring these opportunities to help communities in these situations.