What comes as no surprise to those of us with a healthy skepticism of government but will likely to those who place their trust implicitly in it, will be that we’ve now learned that a briefing provided by the director of Canada’s spy agency to senior officials at different levels of government on Feb. 6 said there was no foreign involvement in the Freedom Convoy protest, in contrast to claims made by federal cabinet ministers. I know you’re flabbergasted!

“There [are] no foreign actors identified at this point supporting or financing this convoy,” CSIS Director David Vigneault said in his briefing given during a teleconference.

“CSIS has also not seen any foreign money coming from others states to support this.”

The CSIS director mentioned that Canada’s financial intelligence agency FINTRAC and banks were involved in the work to track money and supported the assessment about the absence of foreign involvement.

This transcript of the teleconference was presented as evidence during an Oct. 18 hearing of the Public Order Emergency Commission.

Other officials participating in the teleconference included Deputy Minister of Public Safety Rob Stewart, National Security Advisor Jody Thomas, then-chief of the Ottawa Police Service Peter Sloly, and Ontario’s Deputy Solicitor General Mario Di Tommaso.

Vigneault told them his organization was not seeing truckers in the United States organizing to join the protest.

“There is not a lot [of] energy and support from the USA to Canada,” he said. “It is primarily a domestic issue.”

Nevertheless, Vigneault said CSIS put in place lookouts at the border which he said were “quite effective,” indicating that individuals of interest crossing into Canada, citizens or foreigners, were being flagged for national security reasons.

Vigneault touched upon the potential for violence in his briefing, noting the presence of “hardened elements” from “other causes.”

He said they would “likely use violence but they see this as not their mission.”

Vigneault added these individuals were in different locales across the country, “however they are not actively participating or organizing [the protests] and are likely using this as a recruiting ground.”

Though some protestors were charged with alleged violent crimes, OPP Intelligence Bureau chief Pat Morris told the commission on Oct. 19 that the lack of violence during the demonstration was surprising.

“The lack of violent crime was shocking. … Even the arrests and charges, considering the whole thing in totality—I think there were 10 charges for violent crimes, six of which were against police officers,” said Morris.

Protesters did significantly disrupt the lives of residents of downtown Ottawa. The city’s mayor Jim Watson called the regular truck honking being “tantamount to psychological warfare.” For some odd reason Mayor Watson failed to mention the disruption caused by overreaching government policies on Canadians elsewhere in the country, policies such as mandates.

Given February was a lifetime away, let me remind you of what several Liberal cabinet ministers had to say about a foreign dimension surrounding the Freedom Convoy.

“We all need to be seized with the landscape as it exists around foreign interference, and any funds that may be used to undermine public safety,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said in the House of Commons on Feb. 8, Mendicino at the time was commenting on the issue of fundraising by the Freedom Convoy.

The initial fundraiser through the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe raised millions of dollars in a short time, and Ottawa city officials provided information to the company which it used to justify the suspension of the fundraiser.

The source of funds was not nefarious, testified GoFundMe president Juan Benitez before the Commons public safety committee on March 3, and 88 percent of funds originated from Canada.
The Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 and two days later Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair called the cross-country protests and blockades a “largely foreign-funded, targeted, and coordinated attack.” Of course, Minister Blair was a little light on the specifics of exactly which dastardly foreign actors were masterminding this attack on the Empire.

Today’s it’s October 21st and you won’t believe it but the Liberal government has yet to independently substantiate its claims of foreign influence or funding. You know provide “evidence!”

Its explanation for invoking the act, contained in its Section 58 document, mentions a CBC report on the hacking of the GiveSendGo website. Who needs CSIS when you’ve got the CBC, right?

“According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s February 14, 2022 analysis of the data, 55.7% of the 92,844 donations made public were made by donors in the U.S., compared to 39% of donors located in Canada,” says the document.

After the GoFundMe fundraiser was shut down, a new one was started on the platform GiveSendGo. It also quickly amassed millions, but funds were frozen through a court order and so protesters never saw that money.

GiveSendGo’s co-founder Jacob Wells told the Commons public safety committee on March 3 that roughly 60 percent of donations on the platform came from Canada and 37 percent from the United States.
Well that’s not what the intelligence agency, you know the CBC reported, but who can blame them, after all anyone can make a mistake when they’re so overworked, after all they only get 1.2 billion in subsidies from Mr. & Mrs. Taxpayer.

We’ve now learned that at least one government official challenged the narrative, oops, claim that funds collected by the Freedom Convoy were from nefarious sources.

“I think that there were people around the world who were fed up with COVID, who were upset, and saw the demonstrations against COVID [mandates] and I believe that they just wanted to support the cause,” FINTRAC deputy director of intelligence Barry MacKillop told the Commons finance committee on Feb. 24.

“It was their money, their own money. So, it wasn’t money that funded terrorism or that was in any way money laundering.”

Our Chief Lying Minister, sorry Freudian slip, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the House of Commons on Feb. 9 that protest funds were linked to crime.

He said, “We are working very hard with partners at different levels of government to make sure that the flow of funds through criminal activities is interdicted.”

Of course, all that “hard work” ceases when it’s Liberal conflict of interest activities right Mr. Prime Minister?