Close to $3,000 in Freedom Convoy funding comes from Chelsea, La Pêche

Close to $3,000 in Freedom Convoy funding came from 24 donors across Chelsea, Wakefield, and Masham. Trevor Greenway photo

Just under $3,000 in funding for the Freedom Convoy came from residents in Chelsea and La Pêche, with 24 donors chipping in for the protest that has now turned into a 22-day occupation of downtown Ottawa.

The Low Down obtained a copy of the Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS) data hacked from the Christian funding site GiveSendGo and analyzed postal codes in Chelsea, Wakefield, Masham, Edelweiss, Low, and Kazabazua.

Of the $2,917 donated through GiveSendGo, more than half - $1,632 - came from supporters in Chelsea. $700 came from Masham, while another $585 was donated by residents in Wakefield. The most significant contribution was a $400 donation from a Hills business owner. No donations were recorded from Kazabazua or Low.

The Low Down has made the decision not to name the donors over concerns of retaliation against them.

DDoS hacked GiveSendGo on Feb. 15 and released 30 megabytes of donor information, including names, email addresses, postal codes, and internet protocol addresses from close to 100,000 “Freedom Convoy” donors. As of Feb. 18, the convoy had raised $8.4 million.

On Feb. 10, an Ontario judge froze millions of dollars in assets from the Freedom Convoy and Adopt-A-Trucker - the organization coordinating food and other supplies to truckers occupying downtown Ottawa since Jan. 29.

But on Feb. 17, Adopt-A-Trucker had posted six alternative cryptocurrency links on its website for supporters to continue donating to the convoy. This was despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enacting the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, which gives financial institutions sweeping power to freeze accounts of those who have donated to the convoy.

Ottawa Police have served written warnings to protesters in the downtown core to leave the area immediately or face arrest.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also declared a province-wide state of emergency last week to appeal to all three levels of government for assistance in getting control of the situation.