Political aides knew to be false a cabinet claim the Freedom Convoy received suspicious foreign donations, internal records show. Rumours spread by the prime minister and others went uncorrected because the issue was “a hot potato,” wrote one press secretary..“This question has been a bit of a hot potato,” wrote Adrienne Vaupshas, press secretary to the Minister of Finance. Other political aides expressed unease following an enquiry from the Wall Street Journal questioning cabinet claims, according to Blacklock's Reporter..Paul Vieira, Journal correspondent on Parliament Hill, on February 21 sought clarification after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed the convoy “received disturbing amounts of foreign funding to destabilize Canada’s democracy.”.“Can the Prime Minister’s Office provide evidence to corroborate this claim?” asked Vieira. “How much are ‘disturbing amounts’? How much money are we talking about?”.The claim was false. Financial accounts showed most money raised by protesters was donated by Canadians, and none was associated with extremist or criminal groups..Political aides circulated the Wall Street Journal questions and concluded they should not comment. “I don’t think we’d have anything to say on this,” wrote Alexander Cohen, communications director to the Minister of Public Safety..“To be honest, we’ve tried to avoid questions about the foreign funding angle, because we don’t have hard information on it and most of it is actually legal (despite being objectionable, etcetera),” wrote Cohen..Cabinet members repeated the claim of suspicious foreign funding. “There have been alarm bells going off about the rate at which the leaders have been able to raise significant funds much of which has been raised from abroad,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said February 16..Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair on February 16 also mistakenly claimed the protest was “a largely foreign funded, targeted and coordinated attack which was clearly criminally intended to harm Canada.”.The Public Order Emergency Commission determined of $24,529,000 raised by the Freedom Convoy through crowdfunding sites a total of 59% was contributed by Canadians. Juan Benitez, president of GoFundMe, testified March 3 at the Commons public safety committee the largest single donation was $30,000 from an unidentified Canadian..GoFundMe found no evidence of suspicious donations, said Benitez. “We commenced a review,” he said..“Did you ever identify there was anyone on a terrorist watch list in the United States or Canada or anywhere in the world who donated through GoFundMe? Any sort of organized crime elements?” asked Conservative MP Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon River-Parkland, Alta.). “We do extensive screening,” replied Benitez..“So you didn’t identify any problematic people donating to the convoy and if you had identified those people you would have stopped it, is that correct?” asked Lloyd. “That’s correct,” replied Benitez.
