GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding platform geared towards "those living out the heartbeat of God" is blasting a Canadian judge's ruling to freeze donations worth over $8 million for the trucker protests in Canada. The company claims that Canada has no jurisdiction on how they distribute donations.
According to Faithwire, the GiveSendGo fundraiser sprung when the mainstream platform GoFundMe cut off access to more than $10 million raised for the Freedom Convoy, which protested COVID vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions in Canada because Canadian authorities believed it had "become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity." However, the Freedom Convoy protesters have been demonstrating peacefully.
The office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford issued a statement on Thursday saying that Attorney General Doug Downey requested, under Section 490.8 of the Criminal Code, that the provincial government would be empowered to prohibit anyone in Ontario from distributing funds collected by GiveSendGo, CBN News reported. The Christian fundraising platform had launched the "Freedom Convoy 2022" and "Adopt-a-Trucker" campaigns to raise funds for the protesters, but the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted Downey's request late Thursday.
GiveSendGo argued however, that Canada has no power over the Delaware-based company. It took to Twitter to share, "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."
GoFundMe's frozen donations, however, will be looked into by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who promised in early February that his administration will "investigate" the issue. The Florida governor accused the California-based crowdfunding platform of "fraud" and claimed that the site is "commandeer[ing]" the donations to "causes of their own choosing," CBN News reported.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders are also calling for an investigation into GoFundMe. The Hill reported that on Thursday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Rep. James Comer, both Republicans, urged House Democrats to hold hearings on what they believed was discrimination by GoFundMe executives.
"We write to request that you hold a hearing to examine yet another incident of Big Tech silencing certain viewpoints in potentially unlawful ways," the Republicans wrote in a joint memo addressed to House Majority Whip James Clyburn and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, both Democrats. "This time GoFundMe Inc. is selectively discriminating against certain people by cancelling their ability to organize funds through its crowdfunding platform."
Reps. Scalise and Comer accused GoFundMe of trying "to defraud hardworking taxpayers of millions of dollars in donations received" to support efforts promoting "individual freedom."
However, Canadian authorities have warned U.S. politicians to stay out of the Freedom Convoy, saying that speaking out in support of the protesters is "foreign interference." TIME reported that Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said, "We need to be vigilant about potential foreign interference. Whatever statements may have been made by some foreign official are neither here nor there."
"We have our own set of laws. We will follow them," Mendicino concluded.
