Evidence of meeting #18 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was list.
A video is available from Parliament.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
All right. Okay.
I want to move on now, because some of my colleagues have asked you specifically about the timelines. I have several questions regarding the timelines.
For all intents and purposes, the moment you received the request for crowdfunding from Tamara Lich, in your review—not you personally, but your team and the trust and safety team that works with you—there was nothing untoward with respect to the description of the freedom convoy. Is that correct?
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I haven't seen the actual wording. I'm just basing it off a narrative I read that was attributable to this. There was nothing within that description that promoted, either implicitly or explicitly, the use of harassment or violence. Is that correct?
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
That is why your company saw no reason to deny Tamara Lich and her partners the opportunity to fundraise on your platform. Is that correct?
7:15 p.m.
General Counsel, GoFundMe
That is correct. When this campaign was created, it was within our terms of service.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Right.
I'm looking at your terms of service and at paragraph A.8. I don't have a page reference, but under “prohibited conduct”, the terms state:
A. not to use the Services to raise funds or establish or contribute to any Fundraiser with the implicit or explicit purpose of promoting or involving:
8. User content that reflects, incites or promotes behavior that we deem, in our sole discretion, to be an abuse of power or in support of terrorism, hate, violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination, terrorist financing—
7:15 p.m.
NDP
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
7:15 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Yes, you'll have the time. Part of the challenge of reading things into the record is that it takes up the time of the intervention.
We'll now turn to Mr. Virani.
Mr. Virani, you have five minutes. The floor is yours.
November 17th, 2022 / 7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Thank you.
I want to start with something, Ms. Wilford, that was put to you with respect to CBC News. I'm going to quote something because this assertion that CBC News has retracted something is categorically false. CBC News has posted what I'm quoting:
CBC News has not retracted any story about foreign donations going to the convoy protest movement. The full February 10th story, February 14th story and all others on the convoy, are still on the CBC's website in their entirety. Not only do we stand by our reporting, GoFundMe's own testimony before a Commons committee a few weeks after our story was published confirmed that 88 percent of donated funds originated in Canada and 86 percent of donors were from Canada—confirming that approximately $1.2 million of the roughly $10 million raised came from outside the country.
They further elaborate, and I would ask you about this, Ms. Wilford:
GiveSendGo testified that “60% of [their] donations originated from Canada and 37% from the United States.”
I appreciate that's a different online platform, Ms. Wilford, but when you see those types of numbers, is that outside the normal course or normal routine from what you've seen from campaigns you've been involved in at GoFundMe to see 37% of donations originating outside the country?
7:15 p.m.
General Counsel, GoFundMe
Really, all of the campaigns on GoFundMe are pretty unique in their own way, so I don't think I'm in a position to comment on that.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Okay.
Let's talk about the situation where you've outlined the chronology for us. You've indicated there was an attestation letter that was provided by Ms. Tamara Lich, and then you said the situation was moving fast, and I think you said to my colleague Ms. Bendayan that Ms. Lich was not responding to “our outrage”. Did I hear you correctly? Did you use the word “outrage”?
7:20 p.m.
General Counsel, GoFundMe
No, I misspoke. She was not responding to the team's outreach.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Okay, and your outreach, she stopped responding.... What were you attempting to reach out to her about? What were you concerned about?
7:20 p.m.
General Counsel, GoFundMe
Our team was concerned. Again, I was not specifically reaching out to her.
These were members of the team who were working with her to ensure that we were getting answers to questions we had about what was occurring on the ground: that she had a plan for distributing funds and ensuring that the funds did not end up in the hands of anyone who was part of a non-peaceful protest and other questions we had that were developing after the only distribution of funds on January 27.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Part of the attestation that she had—and we found it, as it's part of the public record before the judicial inquiry—talked about ensuring that at all times your terms of reference were adhered to and those included ensuring that at all times the assembly was peaceful. Is that correct?
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Okay.
We understand there were also specifics with respect to how the funds were meant to be distributed, but in fact we learned that $2,000 cheques were being handed out to participants in the blockade. Were you concerned about how the funds were actually being distributed and that those might be in violation of the attestation that Ms. Lich provided to you?
7:20 p.m.
General Counsel, GoFundMe
We were not aware of any of that.
There was one distribution from the funds raised on GoFundMe into an account of $1 million on January 27, an account at TD Bank. It's our understanding those funds were frozen. As to the cheques, I don't have any direct knowledge of anything related to that.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
You're not aware that at the public hearings that I mentioned, the judicial inquiry, it came out in evidence that there were envelopes of $500 and $2,000 in cash that were being delivered to individuals occupying Ottawa. Do you have any response to that? Are you aware of that testimony?
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Okay. Do you have any information that you can share now or table with this committee later with respect to the major donors to this crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe? Who were the major donors?
7:20 p.m.
General Counsel, GoFundMe
We have the donation records so we're happy to circle back with you.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
That would be helpful. Thank you.
Can I just put it to you that I also understand, from information that's now in the public record, that when you ceased providing the funding, when GoFundMe took that decision to stop allocating the funds, GoFundMe and individuals at GoFundMe were subject to threats? Can you confirm that to be the case?