Convoy fundraising leak shows substantial U.S. donations, coded keywords

A clearer picture of who has donated to a crowdfunding platform is emerging after a leak of some 92,000 donors, showing a substantial base of American support for the Canadian protest, coded keywords for fringe U.S. movements, and genuine grassroots Canadian support.

The website of the U.S.-based platform, GiveSendGo, was briefly replaced with a video of “Show Yourself,” a song from the Disney movie “Frozen II”, while text scrolled along the screen identifying what it claimed was the biggest donors.

“On behalf of sane people worldwide who wish to continue living in a democracy, I am now telling you that GiveSendGo is itself frozen,” said the script, a possible reference to a Canadian court injunction that had frozen the money from GiveSendGo last week, although the company continued to fundraise and said the court had no jurisdiction.

The leak comes as the Ottawa protest has entered its third week, despite threats of consequences from law enforcement. Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency last week, and the federal government is weighing whether to use the Emergencies Act for the first time in history.

Some 36,000 Canadian donors — about 39 per cent — are listed in the partial leak, apparently taken from U.S.-based platform GiveSendGo and posted online by a website devoted to disseminating leaked data.