More than $100K in donations to convoy protestors from Kamloops, Okanagan: leak | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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More than $100K in donations to convoy protestors from Kamloops, Okanagan: leak

FILE PHOTO - The Okanagan Slow Roll Convoy protest in Kelowna, Jan. 29, 2022.

More than $100,000 was donated to the so-called freedom convoy protest from people in Kamloops and the Okanagan.

Donations recorded from GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising platform were published online after the website was redirected to a new URL.

Hundreds of donations from people Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton amounted to US$102,000, as recorded in the leaked data set.

That amount rises to roughly $165,000 when including rural postal codes. However, those postal codes include Shuswap, North Thompson, Fraser and Cariboo regions along with the South Thompson and Okanagan.

READ MORE: Canadians overwhelmingly say anti-COVID mandate protests need to come to an end: survey

Thirty-nine per cent of individual donations came from Canadians, which accounted for more than half of the money raised at $4.31 million. Americans accounted for $3.62 million and British donors gave $77,000.

The GiveSendGo fundraiser gained traction after a more than $10 million GoFundMe for the protest was shut down and the company announced it would be refunding donors.

The leaked data published online, Feb. 13, revealed donation amounts, postal codes, email addresses and names attached to each.

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One notable exception is the largest donation has no name or country of origin attached, which was $215,000 on Feb. 6.

From Kamloops and Okanagan cities, the largest donation recorded in the data leak was $2,600, one of a dozen donations of $1,000 or more in the region.

The largest Canadian donation was $75,000. The largest in B.C. was $18,000 and appeared to originate from a business owner in Langley.

Thousands of donations from Canada, the U.S. and United Kingdom ranged from tens of thousands to less than a hundred dollars.

READ MORE: West Kelowna high school students hold protest over sexual assault allegations

On Monday afternoon, the Federal government announced plans to better track crowdsourcing platforms after the data trove showed funds from donors outside Canada purported to fund the ongoing protest in Ontario.

"We are making these changes because we know that these platforms are being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity, which is damaging the Canadian economy," Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said at a Feb. 14 news conference.

Crowdfunding platforms will now be required to report to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada or Fintrac, and federal regulators will have broader authority to share information with banks related to the protest.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Monday to bring to an end to antigovernment blockades he says are illegal and not about peaceful protest.

The GiveSendGo website remains offline "for maintenance and server upgrades," its homepage read on Monday afternoon.

With files from The Canadian Press.


To contact a reporter for this story, email Levi Landry or call 250-819-3723 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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