Public Safety Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wells, picking up our earlier discussion, I want to find out more about your terms of service. If I understand correctly, they prohibit fundraising activities or campaigns that raise funds for illegal activities, to cause harm to people or property.

Is that correct?

[Jacob Wells]

That is correct.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

All right. I gather that the media coverage you saw of what was happening here, in Ottawa, may have been different.

Did you realize that the occupation on Parliament Hill was illegal?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Do we have an answer from one of the witnesses, please?

[Heather Wilson]

Again, we were seeing both sides of the narrative. I want to keep bringing this back to the following, because if this is really a discussion not to be against or for anyone of us but just how to move forward and improve, then I want to keep bringing this back to what you guys in Canada—“you guys”, I'm so not legal—should be doing to make sure that when something happens, you are communicating.

You did not communicate with us at all about what was going on. We had to hear about it second and third-hand as we were trying to walk out what we should be doing as best practices. We're trying to walk this out, and the Government of Canada is making all these moves and not even contacting us or trying to get any information from us. We're supposed to hear about it second and third-hand.

If we're going to move forward, if this is what this discussion is about today, which is what we were led to believe, how to move forward to make sure these things don't happen again, then we need to be also talking about what governments should do when they think something is happening. You could have reached out to us.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Sorry to cut you off, Ms. Wilson, but I have just a few seconds left.

On February 10, the Government of Ontario obtained a restraint order from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to freeze access to the convoy's funds. You were advised of that information on February 10.

At that point, what did you do?

[Heather Wilson]

We didn't get any information from your government. We heard about it on social media. I can find out about aliens on social media as well. We heard about it on social media, and then we had to try to navigate what was going on. We knew the funds were in a U.S. bank account.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

According to the information we have, you received the court order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much. That slot is over.

Colleagues, the clerk has informed me that we can go a few minutes after 1 p.m., which means that we will go the full round.

That means, Mr. MacGregor, you get your full two and a half minutes. Take them.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for the generosity, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Wilson, I think what this committee is trying to get at is that GoFundMe was able to have the resources in place and the intelligence operations within its own ranks to proactively shut this down. That seems to have been lacking with GiveSendGo. That's what we're trying to drill down on.

You said that nobody told you this was going on, but it was apparent to the entire world what was going on. It was quite evident, with trucks being parked on a major thoroughfare. I didn't have to search hard to see what going on. That's what we're trying to get down.

I want to get a comment from you. When the Government of Ontario did move to freeze the funds on February the 10, they used a statement from an Ottawa Police Service officer who supported the affidavit. It was Constable Christopher Rhone. He said that GiveSendGo was knowingly facilitating the commission of indictable offences. He said “GiveSendGo does not appear to be an impartial provider of fundraising services to the Freedom Convoy 2022 protest” adding that GiveSendGo has been “expressly critical” of GoFundMe's decision to terminate its relationship with the campaign and “actively sought out the Freedom Convoy 2022 campaign to join its online fundraising platform”.

It seems from that statement, knowing all of the problems that existed and knowing GoFundMe's reasons for disassociating itself, your company then went actively to fill in the void.

Do you have a comment on that?

[Heather Wilson]

Thank you for that question.

I think it's great. You've made a couple of points. You said that GoFundMe didn't do what's right, but you have been defending GoFundMe. It shows that you have a stake in the game as well. You had GoFundMe do exactly what you wanted.

You say “impartial”. What is impartial? Impartial is someone taking down something because you want them to. Is that impartial? Or is impartial letting something stay whether you agree with it or not? We've had people say that we're not neutral. What's not neutral? We would have allowed an anti-protest fundraiser on our site as well.

Being neutral is not saying that...we don't want to be like GoFundMe. If you look, we've seen a lot of campaigns come to GiveSendGo because they were removed from GoFundMe because of political beliefs. We are simply here to share the hope of Jesus with people through crowdfunding. We don't care what your political beliefs are. We don't—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much. That was very clear. We appreciate your candour.

Colleagues, we have two more slots left. We'll go five minutes for each.

First up is Mr. Van Popta.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here with us and sharing your experiences and knowledge.

I have a quick question for either of our two witnesses.

I want to drill down into the cyber-attack on your website and the information about donors that people thought was anonymous being made public. Perhaps you could tell us a bit about that.

How did that happen and what are you going to do to make sure that never happens again?

[Jacob Wells]

That's a great question. Thank you for that.

GiveSendGo takes the privacy of our users very highly. It was an unfortunate event. Obviously, in taking a neutral stance as we have on campaigns on our platform, we have a big target on our backs for those who are politically motivated.

In light of [Technical difficulty—Editor] were exposed by high-level hackers. Prior to that, we had been engaging outside security audits of our platform to ensure the safety of our platform.

Security has been something that we've been very vigorous about. It was a high-level attack in an attempt to take the platform out, which seemed very ideologically motivated. On the flip side of now having been the receiver of that illegal event, we've brought in additional resources to continue to improve our platform to make sure that type of illegal behaviour never happens again on our platform.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

I understand there's a court order freezing the funds. I understand that roughly $10 million has been raised through GiveSendGo for this project. Where is that money today and will it be refunded?

[Jacob Wells]

We're having ongoing discussions.

The funds are being held legally here in the U.S. in a bank account. We are examining what the options are, going forward. Every legal method is being looked at by legal teams. We want to do what is legal, what is right to ensure funds [Technical difficulty—Editor] with their intention go to the recipient. If that's not possible, they would be refunded back to the givers.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Is there a court order preventing you from delivering the funds to the intended party, the “freedom convoy”?

[Jacob Wells]

Yes. There are legal injunctions in place against it, which is why it hasn't happened.

We haven't made attempts to skirt the law. Regarding the injunction's recipients of the two campaigns in question, their accounts were shut down legally in conjunction with the court order.

GiveSendGo has done everything that's been legally required of us so far in this process, and we will continue to do so.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Why wouldn't you just refund all the contributions, the way that GoFundMe did?

[Jacob Wells]

That's a great question, and it's a really appropriate question. It's on the table.

This has been an ongoing situation that's rapidly changing. The response of the government has rapidly changed. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables. It's not an easy situation. We don't take it lightly and we understand that everybody here has.... It's been somewhat of an issue and a stress in trying to figure it out and navigate it well.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] will be making decisions over the next several days about how we want to proceed, in conjunction with legal counsel and what's happening in the legal cases surrounding these issues.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I have one quick question. There's talk here in Canada that funding platforms such as yours are going to become subject to our FINTRAC rules. You might not know what that is, but there is the American counterpart—I'm not sure what the name of it is.

How will your business model change if you become subject to FINTRAC's anti-money laundering rules?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have 10 seconds to answer.

[Jacob Wells]

It's a great question. We're going to do everything that we're required to do by law in order to keep our platform viable and to continue the service that we have for Canadians and other people around the world.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McKinnon, I see your hand is up. Do you have a point of order, or is that an old hand?

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I'm sorry. That's a residual hand. I'll take it down.