Weeks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revoked the Emergencies Act he had used against the "Freedom Convoy" truckers protesting COVID restrictions, the Ottawa Police Department is still looking to go after police officers in its ranks who may have aided truckers by donating through crowdfunding sites.
Interim Chief Steve Bell even told CBC Radio that these investigations have gone on since their earliest days.
According to a Thursday report from CBC News:
Interim Chief Steve Bell told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning Thursday the force is committed to scrutinizing the matter fully, and the investigations are ongoing.
"Yes, in early days, we started investigations into individuals who may have been involved. Those will continue. I think it's really important to note that it's a very, very small number," Bell said in response to a question about alleged officer donations.
"We need to deal with the people who supported it, because there's no room for them, but the vast majority of this organization did everything within their power, in an absolutely professional way, to remove that demonstration from our streets."
From Bell's wording, it's unclear whether the investigations pertain only to possible donations, or whether any officers may have had deeper links to the protest.
Bell's emphasis that it is only a few officers who dared to allegedly help the truckers does not provide any more comfort. If anything, it shows the relentlessness of targeting officers in their ranks who made donations.
Further, the names of these officers came from leaked reports, which CBC News acknowledged it took part in combing through, to find out which donors had potential ties to the Ottawa Police department, essentially helping the police department in their purging and punishment efforts. Ezra Levant of Rebel News has referred to the outlet as "Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster."
From the CBC report:
Last week, CBC News matched at least two dozen current and former members of the Ottawa Police Service and Ontario Provincial Police with a publicly leaked list of names identified as apparent donors to GiveSendGo, a crowdfunding site that was used to support the weeks-long occupation in Ottawa.
...
After comparing the names of donors living in Ontario to publicly accessible salary disclosure lists of police officers, CBC found roughly 60 people with potential connections to law enforcement based on information they provided to GiveSendGo.
CBC then cross-referenced the information with other publicly available sources such as postal codes, social media accounts and archived news stories, and was able to match at least 26 donors to current and former police members — six with Ottawa police and 20 with the OPP.
For some Ottawa police officers, CBC was able to further confirm their names, and at times their donation amounts, with sources within the force. CBC is not naming the officers because they have not been charged nor disciplined, and none agreed to be on the record.
There have been incidents of media outlets contacting donors, including Americans, to put them on the spot about why they decided to donate, which even Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) opposed.
The Ottawa Police Department has been called out for the lengths it's been willing to go to subdue the truckers, including tweets showing off its tyrannical behavior. Last month, there was footage of a police horse trampling people, including a woman on a mobility scooter, though those people were later confirmed to have survived.
Tweets from the official account of the Ottawa Police showed the department trying to coerce crowdfunding sites to refuse to help the truckers. After GoFundMe froze and made the initial decision not to automatically refund donations, other crowdfunding sites were targeted, including GiveSendGo.
We want to thank @gofundme for listening to our concerns as a City and a police service. The decision to withhold funding for these unlawful demonstrations is an important step and we call on all crowdfunding sites to follow.
— Ottawa Police (@OttawaPolice) February 5, 2022
Those who participated in the "Freedom Convoy" have faced arrests, had their bank accounts frozen and their assets seized, which included their trucks and trucking licenses, and could also have their ownership of pets and custody of their children impacted.
A "Freedom Convoy" has also made its way throughout the United States, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) participating, as Julio covered.