Bowen Island residents donated just under $1,000 to participants of the recent demonstrations across the country, most notably in Ottawa and at border crossings in Windsor and Alberta.
The contributions were made through the American website GiveSendGo (GSG). The group stepped in to fill the void caused by the suspension of a prior GoFundMe campaign, which had raised over $10 million for the convoy.
GiveSendGo donors proceeded to raise more than $8 million in response, about half of which came from Canadians. Last month a data hack by the Distributed Denial of Secrets group, known for past data and information leaks, obtained the list of donors to the GSG fundraiser and shared them with journalists. Locations were confirmed by matching postal and ZIP codes provided by donors to the website.
On Bowen there were 11 individual donors who gave $943 total. The top two donations were for $200 each. Five of the contributions were for $100 or more.
Messages of support were also included for the ‘Freedom Convoy’ cause. One local donor wrote “You give people around the world hope! We must save our democracy before it’s too late. Reading comments each morning on the previous funding site, I was happy to see so many are awake to what’s been going on. I hope that more are now seeing through the false, hateful and divisive narrative. Beautiful to see the unity of the diversity Canadians as you crossed the country to our capital. Thank you!”
“God grant everyone safety and His protection and His success. This is our last chance before total darkness closes in,” said another donor, while one writes “Truckers, you are our biggest hope! Blessings!”
Participants in the Ottawa convoy were finally removed from the capital in mid-February after occupying the city for three weeks. As of March 3, organizers Pat King and Tamara Lich remain in jail awaiting trial and a bail decision, respectively, on mischief and other charges. Fellow organizer Chris Barber was released on $100,000 bail and ordered to leave the province of Ontario pending trial for mischief.
