Front Burner - Follow the money: A Freedom Convoy update

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

It's been two months since police cleared out the trucks and protesters who'd been occupying the streets around Parliament Hill. Several of the key figures involved in the convoy protests are in custody or out on bail, waiting for their trials to begin. Millions in donations have been seized, repaid or spent, but almost $8 million have not been accounted for. And many people in Ottawa — and across the country — are still waiting for answers and accountability. CBC Ottawa reporter David Fraser has been following the money and the latest from court. He fills us in on what we know now about how this protest became so entrenched.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Jamie Poisson. Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! For three weeks this past winter, protesters occupied the streets around Parliament Hill.

While they called for freedom, daily routines were paralyzed for many people who live and work in downtown Ottawa. Folks, this is Constable Mark from the Ottawa Police. You must leave the area immediately or face to be arrested. A massive police action eventually cleared the crowds and trucks. But even though the bouncy castle and the hot tub are long gone, big questions remain about how this all happened and why authorities couldn't or didn't do more to stop it. Some of the key leaders in the convoy protest are now in court facing charges and we're starting to get more details about where all that money they raised

actually went. David Fraser is a CBC reporter and he's based in Ottawa. Hey David, it is great to have you on the podcast, a first timer. So good to have you. Thanks so much for having me, Jamie. I appreciate it. I want to start with some of the key figures here. So one of the most high profile is Pat King, who is still in custody. And he appeared in court a few times recently for a bail review hearing. And just remind me about his role in the protest and where his case is at now. Sure. So during the protest, we definitely saw some key figures emerge. And King was definitely one of them on social media. And in real life, people really gravitated towards this guy. I guarantee you they're not going to touch us.

I got my heart, my soul and everything in my essence of being is telling me that they will not touch us. As long as you keep being peaceful you have your right and he rallied protesters and he helped coordinate uh a lot of events most memorably to me was the the slow roll around the ottawa airport and during the protests for a lot of people in ottawa anytime pat king went live it was sort of like must watch viewing for us just to know what is this guy gonna say next what's he gonna direct people to do next and that's what we're going to continue doing acting lawfully so to the officers out there who think that they can act unlawfully you'll see in court that's right and that's what the canadian justice system is there for so um other leaders have definitely tried to distance

themselves from this guy and that's mostly in part over racist views that he's made in the past. But it is really, really hard to understate just the amount of influence that Pat King had. And he was arrested back in February. He's facing several charges, including mischief and counseling to commit mischief. You're under arrest, sir. For what? For mischief, counseling to commit the offense of mischief, counseling to commit the offenseence of mischief. Counselling to commit the offence of obstruct police officers.

Counselling to commit the offence of disobey court orders. Could you please step out of the vehicle, sir? I'd like to get my lawyer on the phone right away. He's been in jail since he's been arrested. And his bail hearings, they've been a bit of a spectacle. He's had a couple sort of surprise adjournments. He's also had a tough time just like getting and keeping a lawyer. When he finally did get a lawyer, the lawyer who was representing him in the middle of the bail hearing had his computer hacked.

What? Yeah, it was one of the craziest things I've ever seen take place in a courtroom. What? Yeah, it was one of the craziest things I've ever seen take place in a courtroom. Almost straight out of the movies, Pat King's lawyer, who was appearing virtually, stopped the proceedings. And as he was doing so, those in the courtroom could hear this voice, a woman's voice, saying all these cryptic things about having to shut down your computer. And it became very apparent quickly that his computer had been compromised. So court was adjourned until he could get that all settled, which, by the way, he did.

He was able to, with confidence, say that all of his files were secured. But absolutely a bizarre moment. And it's par for the course for what we've seen out of Pat King's court proceedings so far. Now it seems like he's got a lawyer that she's going to stay on record for him. Her name's Natasha Calvino. And I think he's going to need her because he's also facing new charges, including perjury and obstruction of justice. Unfortunately, a lot of this is under a publication ban, so we're limited on what we can say. But suffice to say, King, he's really taken a lot of the post

convoy oxygen cup and and his court appearances and i guess kind of the the chaos around them have been different right than what we've seen from one of the other key leaders here uh tamara leach police started at the top of the organization, arresting the protest leadership, Western separatist Tamara Leach. Can you describe that difference for me? Yeah, sure. So Tamara has in many ways been sort of the opposite of what Pat King's approach or court hearings have been like. His early court appearances especially were marked by just this underlying chaos of people entering the virtual courtroom. Of course, it doesn't help that up until fairly recently, most of his matters were taking place in a virtual courtroom. But people were coming in to purposefully disrupt the court matters.

We'd hear music getting played and people would be coming on and making funny noises, etc., etc. They were heavily attended by what we believe to be our are his supporters but without doubt some some just interested members of the public as well the flip of all of that is tamara leach is is now using one of the most high profile defense lawyers in ottawa this fellow by the name of lawrence greenspawn he's a he's a bigwig hey like i i would imagine that he does not come cheap yeah he's definitely uh represented some high profile figures in the past. And he's considered to be one of the more highly expensive lawyers around town in Ottawa. We should say it's not clear how much Tamara Leach is paying him or if she's paying him at all.

We're not sure. But we do know that she's out on bail in Alberta right now. She continues to actively distance herself from Pat King in court filings that we have been able to see. And it appears she's trying to paint herself as like this normal woman from Alberta who is upset at the government. Our movement has grown in Canada and across the world because common people are tired of the mandates and restrictions in their lives that now seem to be doing more harm than good. of the mandates and restrictions in their lives that now seem to be doing more harm than good. She went along to this protest in Ottawa, started raising money, and it quickly spiraled out of her own control and sort of got bigger than what she expected it to be. So really looking forward to her trial. It's going to be starting alongside her co-accused, this fellow by the name of Chris

Barber, who's actually a truck driver who traveled to Ottawa with Tamara Leach. So, I mean, those are three people that we know were involved in the protests, and of course, more high profile. But I know and of course more high profile but I know of course hundreds of people were arrested it strikes me that we haven't heard very much about about them right um do we know more about those other cases yeah not really and I've spoken with some experts who definitely find this kind of strange. What we do know is that there were 230 arrests and 118 people charged. That's what police told us in the days following the convoy.

But it's this ongoing effort to find out whether or not all those charges are proceeding or whether or not some will be dropped. Police aren't releasing the names of the people who they're charging. So it's really difficult to just sort of navigate through the court of the people who they're charging so it's really difficult to just sort of navigate through the court and figure out who's who the interim chief of police in ottawa did say that they would name charge people who were being charged as as they went uh but as we as we know the police have only disclosed the names of six people uh charged for their role and what happened i have this list and it's got so many more names than that. Many are from this proposed class action lawsuit

that's sort of adjacent to a lot of the court proceedings taking place here in Ottawa. But that list, it includes truck drivers, people who were logistics captains who helped arrange the delivery of food and fuel, things like this. And some people who helped raise money, including one high profile Bitcoin fundraiser. And many of those people haven't been arrested or

haven't worked their way through the courts yet. Huh? Interesting. And you mentioned this high profile Bitcoin fundraiser. I want to I want to come back to him in a minute. But I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the money first. So we know that this convoy raised a lot, a lot of money, very fast, first on fundraising platform GoFundMe, and then through a US-based site, GiveSendGo. And also, they were really emphasizing cryptocurrency for a while as well. cryptocurrency for a while as well. Then, of course, the government came in. This happened. This is about following the money. This is about stopping the financing of these illegal blockades. We are today serving notice. If your truck is being used in these illegal blockades, your corporate accounts will be frozen. And so what do we know now about what happened to all of this money when the Emergencies Act was invoked?

Right. So when the Emergencies Act was invoked, it basically gave new powers to block the money that was being raised from getting into the hands of protesters. And when you do the math and you add up all the money from the popular fundraisers that were put on by the protesters, we can see that they raised about $24 million. million dollars um one of the primary platforms that they used as you mentioned there was gofundme gofundme says that they've returned most of the money uh raised through its platform to the people who donated and it appears that that's just what happened we might remember gofundme uh ended its its sort of relationship with the with the convoy protesters during the protest just gonna leave because they're not getting the money from the GoFundMe. We won't be leaving. GoFundMe says it won't transfer any more fundraising, about $9 million left. After the company says it received evidence, the demonstration has become an occupation

with reports of violence and unlawful activity. There's a small chunk, small, little less than $2 million that hasn't been returned. That's money that came from GoFundMe that was seized from Tamara Leach. It's now sitting in an escrow account that's tied to the proposed class action lawsuit I mentioned. It's not really clear where some of the money from GiveSendGo has gone. There's court documents that show there's a little bit over $4 million that's being held by a payment processing company. But again, doing the math,

that means that there's nearly $8 million that's still unaccounted for. Sorry, I just want to pause on that for a second. There's $8 million unaccounted for. Yeah, and that's money from, it looks like it's from GiveSendGo. And the co-founder and chief financial officer, Jacob Wells, said donations would be returned to donors. But I've spoken with some who say they've gotten their donations back.

I've spoken with others who say they have not. Yeah. Yeah. And then what about the cryptocurrency? And I think that this will bring us back to the Bitcoin fundraiser guy that you mentioned earlier. Right. Yeah. So the Convoy protest, their like sort of official fundraiser, if you will, it raised about 20 Bitcoin, which equals about a million dollars. And a little less than half of that is now in escrow. The rest, it continues to evade authorities.

We know that once the Emergencies Act was invoked, there was this push to get some of the funds in cryptocurrency out into the hands of truckers. The protest organizers realized proper cash out of our bank accounts isn't going to work anymore. anymore. So there was this active effort to instead use Bitcoin and move the Bitcoin out of the organizer's hands into the hand of truckers using digital wallets where it becomes harder to seize. I mentioned this Bitcoin fundraiser. My name is Nick and I'm the Bitcoin team lead for the Ottawa Freedom Convoy, which essentially means I'm the primary liaison between the Bitcoin community and directors of the Freedom Convoy nonprofit organization. I'm also on the ground speaking to truckers every day here in Ottawa to keep a pulse on how things are going and what everyone needs. That's this Nicholas St. Louis guy. He's the self-described liaison between the Bitcoin

community and the protesters. And we know all of this uh what i'm saying right now because he openly published his strategy on youtube uh the day the emergencies act was evoked a statement was shared on social media from the convoys crypto leaders and and it said that nick would be quote overseeing things moving forward he posted on his own social media that he'd be giving bitcoin out to quote law by biting citizens basically just you know getting this money out to the truckers. How would he be getting that money out to the truckers? I'm just assuming that a lot of them, like me, don't have digital wallets, just like kicking around, right? Like don't deal in Bitcoin. You're right. I think most people don't have digital wallets,

at least not yet. In this one live stream, we can see Nicholas St. Louis walking up with an envelope to a protester sitting in his truck. As soon as the bank shut down, we had some big donors that were like, we need to get Bitcoin to these truckers. I'm not kidding you.

So keep it safe. Basically open it up. There's instructions. All you do is do a recovery code. It's going to tell you to download Blue Wallet. Boot it up. It's yours. That's ridiculous. What he's doing here is he's coming up, handing this protester an envelope. He says that it contains a password or a seed code. And it gives instructions on how to access about $8,000 in Bitcoin and get it into the hands of the truckers.

So Nick is quite literally going truck to truck distributing this money here. By the letter of the law, it doesn't seem like that would be allowed under the Emergencies Act. From court documents and a sworn affidavit actually from St. Louis himself, we know that police officers executed a search warrant on his home. They seized a good chunk of Bitcoin, a sizable amount of the Bitcoin that's in escrow now as a result of this. And we know that police are continuing to investigate the matter. We should say that Nick has not been charged and he has repeatedly declined to speak with me and CBC. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization,

empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing.

In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. David, why do you think it matters now to try and track down this money that was, you know, donated by people? Like, the protesters aren't protesting anymore. So, like, why track it down? Right, yeah.

So, there's no one buying food or fuel with any of the money now, at least for protests in Ottawa. But there is this big proposed class action lawsuit that I keep referencing, and that's on behalf of businesses and citizens in downtown Ottawa. The money that's involved in the protest could potentially be used to pay for any damages that arise from a potential settlement from that proposed class action lawsuit. And on the other hand, authorities, they want to capture some of this money to make sure that it can't be used to fund another protest or be used for other nefarious activities. on some of the money that's already seized, for example, and in escrow, the Attorney General of Ontario has put in a civil forfeiture claim, which is typically what a government would do when they're trying to recover proceeds of crime. So there is some evidence to suggest that that is very much the way that the government at least views this money. And that's why it's important.

One thing I did want to ask you about is I remember at the time there was a lot of talk, right, about the seizure of bank accounts and assets that belong to the hundreds of people who are protesting. And has there been any real financial consequences for any of the protesters? Yeah, so aside from the protesters who had their personal accounts seized, which I'm sure we can all imagine what kind of chaos that that could cause if our personal bank accounts get seized, there's some continuing hardships. For example, there was one man who spoke with CBC saying that he regrets coming and joining the protest in Ottawa. His name is Martin Englehart. And I went all the way to Ottawa with them and I remember it was amazing. Like all the people waving flags and everything and I thought that was a cause you know that was bigger than me and I thought you know. He wound up spending his life savings it's like about 13 000

i regret every day going like i have nothing left like with one month sitting in my car not with everything thinking about everything yes i don't think it was worth it to go to ottawa that he spent uh just to support the protesters. He was buying them food and gas and assisting them in other ways. He wound up living out of his car for a while in British Columbia. And he originally joined because he was looking for some just general connection. I never really had friends in life. I never really had anybody. Everybody that went to Ottawa was like a magnet.

They needed something to believe in, like me. And they need something to break the monotony of the life, to break this, you know, the circle of loneliness. Or some other people. But he's never, he says says seen a scent from any of the funds that were raised online he did he does say that he got some cash donations from fellow protesters uh just to help him you know get out of ottawa but it continues to have real consequences for him he's faced some backlash for speaking to cbc so the community that he was sort of a part

of with the protesters, many of them have really turned on him. And I spoke with him earlier today, in fact, and he's still living in essentially homeless, a month-to-month hotel in Northern Ontario. Some of the leaders are obviously, as we've talked about, facing charges with trials set to get underway soon. Authorities are tracking down the money. But a lot of anger around this protest was over the way officials at all levels handled it, right? Or failed to handle it, including how the trucks got there in the first place. And I understand you've seen some pretty interesting text messages. And can you tell me about those? Yeah, of course. So a big question was sort of around how much

police knew about the convoy protesters' plans to park downtown before they arrived. And as part of an affidavit that's included in this proposed class action lawsuit against the protest leaders, there's some pretty interesting text messages between a police officer with Ottawa Police and this guy known as Chris. One of the officers texts to Chris says, quote, I will have a definite plan for you tomorrow morning. The protest organizers respond by saying they were, quote, so happy police and organizers could work together. And the officer responded with, quote, absolutely.

It goes on and on. And the officer eventually tells this protester or this protest organizer where to park, including that the trucks and other protesters would be able to park along Wellington Street right in front of Parliament and along Surge on a McDonald, which, as we know, is where a lot of the truckers ended up going. Plus, police told in this text message to this Chris fella that they had, quote, secured a parking lot for the baseball stadium just east of downtown. And as we know, this is the Coventry camp that I think Frontburner, you visited. We did, yeah. Uh, and as we know, this is the Coventry camp that I think Frontburner, you visited, uh, and as you know, it became a sort of a stronghold for the protesters and an organization hub. And we now know that it was, uh, the police who were responsible for the truckers, uh, setting up a camp there. Have you talked to people about the nature of these text messages? guess the question I have is like, is that typical behavior, trying to keep a line of communication open between the police and protesters, or is there a sense that it crossed some sort of line?

Yeah, I talked to some experts about this, and I think there is a general expectation, just as, you know, people who live in big cities generally have an expectation that sometimes protests will take place and presumably police are liaisoning with those protesters to keep track of where they're going and whatnot. So some level of communication, I think, is definitely expected. This seemed to be a little less about keeping tabs on where the protesters are and more about, you know, telling them where they can and can't go. One expert I spoke to says that he believes this is an agreement gone wrong, that there was this deal that was in place where the protesters would stay in the places where the police told them they could go for a few days and then they would leave. But of course, we now know that that's not what happened.

And then I suppose the other thing here is not necessarily what happened or how they got there, but what happened once they were there. And this idea that it certainly seemed like the police were paralyzed for weeks and basically unable to deal with this situation. With downtown Ottawa paralyzed by protesters, Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloley has resigned. Sloley's performance handling the Freedom Convoy has come under relentless fire, accused of allowing protesters to have their way, Do we have any more answers here about what on earth happened there at the highest levels in the city and in the police department? Yeah, we really don't, at least yet. During the protest, we did see the police chief stepped down

and there was a late night council meeting that was full of vitriol and it resulted in a total overturn of the police services board. But in terms of actual accountability and finding out who knew what, who was communicating with who, we don't have those answers yet. There's a number of different inquiries that are getting going.

There's an inquiry at the city level that seems like it's going to be quite thorough. The police are doing an internal investigation. And then any day now, we're going to learn of the inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act. So presumably we will get some of those answers. But for now, we're just not in a position to have any of those answers. What we do know is that there was some changes at the leadership, as I referenced earlier. We know that the mayor of Ottawa isn't seeking re-election in the fall. earlier. We know that the mayor of Ottawa isn't seeking re-election in the fall, but really we're going to wait to see what comes of these various investigations and inquiries to get those answers.

All right. Thank you so much for this update, David. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.