Convoy fundraising leak shows substantial U.S. donations, coded keywords
By Jon Woodward
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TORONTO (CTV Network) — A clearer picture of who has donated to a crowdfunding platform is emerging after a leak of some 92,000 donors, showing a substantial base of American support for the Canadian protest, coded keywords for fringe U.S. movements, and genuine grassroots Canadian support.
The website of the U.S.-based platform, GiveSendGo, was briefly replaced with a video of “Show Yourself,” a song from the Disney movie “Frozen II”, while text scrolled along the screen identifying what it claimed was the biggest donors.
“On behalf of sane people worldwide who wish to continue living in a democracy, I am now telling you that GiveSendGo is itself frozen,” said the script, a possible reference to a Canadian court injunction that had frozen the money from GiveSendGo last week, although the company continued to fundraise and said the court had no jurisdiction.
The leak comes as the Ottawa protest has entered its third week, despite threats of consequences from law enforcement. Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency last week, and the federal government is weighing whether to use the Emergencies Act for the first time in history.
Some 36,000 Canadian donors — about 39 per cent — are listed in the partial leak, apparently taken from U.S.-based platform GiveSendGo and posted online by a website devoted to disseminating leaked data.
But that number is dwarfed by the number of American donors — some 51,000 or about 55 per cent. Several donors contacted by CTV News confirmed the figures relating to them are accurate, though the leak refers to $8.4 million in donations, about $1 million short of the figure GiveSendGo had on Sunday. TOP DONORS
Brad Howland of Easy-Kleen Pressure Systems in Sussex, N.B., is listed as the largest donor in Canada, at US$75,000. His donation was anonymous, but in the GiveSendGo records he uses a company email and he acknowledged in an email to CTV News that he was a donor.
“We are thankful to be blessed enough to support their efforts to do what they have to do in a peaceful way until the government removes the mandates to restore all our freedom as pre-COVID,” he said in a statement.
Easy-Kleen is listed as a beneficiary of the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy, a federal government program that provides money to businesses during the pandemic. Howland has not yet responded to questions about whether it is possible that government funds were donated.
In Ontario, the largest donor is Holden Rhodes, a lawyer and businessman from London, Ont. He acknowledged his US$25,000 donation, which was not anonymous and listed on the GiveSendGo site.
“Strange how people are so enraged with other people like me helping to defend their freedoms. As for terrorists, insurrections and the other inflammatory language, they clearly haven’t seen the millions of everyday Canadians helping as I have,” he said.
The largest American donor at US$90,000 is listed as Thomas M. Siebel, the same name as an American billionaire. His donation was not anonymous, and he has not responded to emails from CTV News since last week.
Among the top ten donors is Travis Moore, a cryptocurrency businessman, who donated US$17,760, a reference to the date of the American revolution. He wrote on the website, “Let freedom ring, brothers of the north. Cryptocurrency is the future.”
In an email to CTV News, Moore said he is against mandates, he is not vaccinated and he believes COVID-19 is “like a bad flu.” He attached a picture of a person with dozens of needles, including one in each of two eyes, a QR code on his forehead, and a caption, “I hope my government will let me go outside today.” Canadian public health officials have said that the death rate of COVID-19 far exceeds that of the flu.
Canadian donors make up 6 of the top ten donors; Americans make up 3, with the top donation — US$215,000 — listed as “processed but not recorded.” The anonymous nature of these donations has rattled a parliamentary committee, which is looking at how to regulate crowdfunding of political movements.
Of all donations in the dataset, Canadians provided 51 per cent, while Americans provided 43 per cent. Maps indicate most of the support in Canada comes from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Southern Ontario.
In the United States, California, Texas and Florida lead in donations with about 15%, 9%, and 7% according to a breakdown by CTV News. CODED KEYWORDS
Among the phrases recorded in the comments are supportive language from a wide variety of the U.S. and Canada. There were 72 references to “WWG1WGA”, which is an abbreviation for “Where we go one, we go all,” a phrase in a 1996 Jeff Bridges sailing adventure “White Squall” that has become a rallying cry for the QAnon movement.
QAnon purports that America is run by a cabal of pedophiles and Satan-worshippers who run a global child sex trafficking operation and only former U.S. President Donald Trump can stop them. The FBI has warned that fringe conspiracy theories such as QAnon pose a domestic terrorism threat in the United States.
The leaked file has a “to_gsg_amount” in its fields that appears to be a commission from GiveSendGo on each donation. The total commission appears to be $572,747.94. GiveSendGo has not responded to questions from CTV News.
It’s not clear who has the $9.318 million that GiveSendGo claims to have raised. GoFundMe refunded much of the more than $10 million it raised; TD Bank froze two personal bank accounts that GoFundMe had deposited some money into, saying they would apply to a court for direction about what to do with the money.
The convoy’s lawyer, Keith Wilson, has told CTV News, “We will be taking expedited legal steps to have the restriction on the donated funds lifted as soon as possible.”
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Sonja Puzicsonja.puzic@bellmedia.ca
