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.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jim Carr
I would like to call the meeting back to order.
With us for this second hour, by video conference, representing GiveSendGo, we have Jacob Wells, co-founder; and Heather Wilson, co-founder.
I now invite Mr. Wells to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.
Sir, the floor is yours.
Jacob Wells Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, members of Parliament, for inviting us to be here today. It is our privilege to speak to you.
My opening statement is going to be brief. GiveSendGo was started by my sister Heather and me eight years ago. Our mission statement is to share the hope of Jesus through crowdfunding, which is our platform—a crowdfunding platform. We do that by allowing people to donate to campaigns from all around the world in conjunction with our payment solutions that we use to onboard people.
GiveSendGo continues to see great things happening around the world. Obviously, there are political campaigns, things that have tension around them, and we navigate them as best we can. But in light of that, our platform continues to be a beacon of hope and light for people all around the world as they give to endeavours that make a difference in our world each and every day.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jim Carr
Thank you very much.
Now we will go to our opening round of questions, and the first questioner will be Mr. Lloyd.
Sir, you will have six minutes whenever you're ready.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming before us today.
I want to confirm something. A news report said that with your campaign specifically to support the convoy protesters, the 60% of the donations originated from Canada and 37% from the United States.
Is that correct?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
In terms of the actual money raised, is that 60:37 per cent ratio fairly consistent, or what, percentage-wise, was the origin of the funding?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
Yes, that's going to be very consistent. Most of the donations were under $100, and it's pretty consistent across the board.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Is it consistent in terms of around 60% of the total money being raised coming from Canada and 37% from the United States? I'm just confirming that the amounts are roughly consistent.
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
Yes, I believe it to be. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I believe that to be the case, yes.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Okay.
Forgive me, but I'd never heard of your organization before this convoy protest. Before this protest happened, what percentage of your business would you say was conducted in Canada? What percentage of your fundraisers were Canadian-based fundraisers?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
I would say that probably around six per cent of our campaigns originate out of Canada.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Can you give us an example of some of the campaigns that you've financed in Canada in the past?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
Off the top of my head, probably not.
We have thousands of campaigns that come through GiveSendGo all the time. Most of them are related to missions trips, people going with churches to help with emergencies in communities—medical bills, adoptions, things like that. Likely all of those types of things have happened before in Canada through our platform.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Would it be fair to say that the convoy protest was an unprecedented moment for your organization?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
So as an organization, you've never really funded anything political of this size before, anything related to protests against the government, in Canada?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
No, definitely not. In Canada, and even here in the U.S., we don't.... One, GiveSendGo doesn't fund things. People start campaigns themselves and they get funding from their supporters, but that really doesn't happen anyways, anywhere.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Yes, it seems consistent with GoFundMe. You don't actually handle the money yourselves; it's handled through the payment processors. Is that correct?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
There's been a lot of talk about your organization's involvement in the events of January 6 in the United States. Can you give us a little bit of a summary of your organization's involvement in that?
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
Sure. It was very little. There's a lot of misconception, a lot of misinformation, even from the last session that I heard. GiveSendGo had very little, if any, involvement in January 6.
We have allowed campaign owners to create campaigns and to proceed in legal activities, and one of those is their right to assembly and right to protest government. There were a handful, maybe 10 to 15 campaigns, prior to January 6, for people fundraising to go to the event. It was for hotel expenses and flights, those types of things. Usually the campaign was under a thousand dollars, so again—
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
What would have been the total amount of money from all those campaigns for events related to January 6?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
People are trying to state that somehow your organization was masterminding the financing of the events of January 6. With $10,000 to $15,000 for hotels and flight expenses, the evidence doesn't seem to back that up.
Co-Founder, GiveSendGo
We have no evidence to support that. People obviously like to make claims to support their viewpoints.