Evidence of meeting #12 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was platform.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Of course.
How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Because of the event and your involvement in Canada obviously, and the Government of Canada, I believe, did you shut down your page proactively or was it the government that shut down your page? How did that happen with your fundraiser?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
The one in Ottawa. The convoy protest. The “adopt a trucker” campaign.
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
The page has actually not been shut down. It's ongoing.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
The Government of Canada didn't shut down your page. Was it because they weren't able to or...?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
We were never contacted by the government or law enforcement agencies there. We heard reports of the government doing various things, but they never reached out to us that we were aware of.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
The government never reached out to you to express their concerns with the fundraiser on your page? That seems consistent with GoFundMe.
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
Obviously, like you mentioned, the amount of traffic and volume was unprecedented. We are sizeably smaller than GoFundMe. There was an inundation of emails and a variety of things, so our team was handling it as best as they could. Things may have slipped through the cracks, but we were unaware of anything.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jim Carr
Thank you.
I'd now like to turn the microphone over to Mr. Noormohamed.
Sir, you have six minutes and the floor is yours whenever you want it.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wells.
You're a veteran and we thank you for your service. You went on record on Fox News saying that you know what sacrifice is. Do you believe that calling for the overthrow of a democratically elected government or funding movements that speak to that is part of the freedom that you fought for?
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
The convoy and protesters spoke publicly of the desire to commit violence against the government and to overthrow the government.
Would your platform, having seen all of these things in the public domain, not have caught this as part of your prohibited activities and terms of use?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
In our course of research around the campaigns, that was not something that we were aware of. Obviously, there are always fringe elements to any organization. I believe the media in general just tries to polarize the fringe things because it's great for the media. It doesn't necessarily constitute the general—
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
No. Sorry. You say that you believe that the media polarizes. Do you believe that it was polarization when the city of Ottawa was shut down and a variety of laws, statutes, regulations and ordinances of the City of Ottawa, as well as federal laws, were violated—which, again, fall counter to your terms of use?
This, by the way, would have only required you to turn on the television.
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
You can say that. I don't necessarily agree with that.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Do you believe that what happened in Ottawa was lawful protest ?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
From what I've seen, I believe it was lawful up to the point where orders were enacted to make it unlawful.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
You believe that violating sound ordinances or traffic violations and blocking off entire streets outside the capital is perfectly reasonable even though it's considered unlawful?
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
You don't know that those things happened.
Did you turn on the television and see anything about this campaign, sir, when you became part of the media narrative, even on Fox News?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
I do need to make a distinction. The blockade over the bridges had nothing to do with the campaigns on GiveSendGo. There weren't campaigns on GiveSendGo for those blockades.
What happened in Ottawa, from what I was getting reports of on the ground, was that truckers did move into the city and that lanes of traffic were open and available for emergency vehicles and other vehicles to travel through. It was the police that—
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Were you aware that horns were blaring through the night in violation of a variety of ordinances?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
I did hear reports of horns blaring, that an injunction was made against that, and they stopped.