Canada’s Trudeau Gets Banks’ Help in Protests

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, is using his emergency powers to cut the flow of money to the trucker protests opposed to his vaccine mandate, Bloomberg reported Monday (Feb. 14).

Banks will now have to review their relationships with those involved in the blockade and report them. In addition, the banks will have the authority to stop providing services to anyone suspected of trying to help the protesters with their account.

They’ll also be able to freeze accounts.

The report says the government is also using its anti-money-laundering practices, aiming to cover crowdsourcing sites like GoFundMe, which have been used for donations, along with some cryptocurrency platforms.

There will also be orders to freeze accounts of owners of the trucks, and to suspend their insurance.

The protests began with a trucker convoy in Ottawa over two weeks ago — it has now gridlocked the Canadian capital and expanded to border crossings, including the bridge carrying Canadian goods to the U.S., which is the biggest trading partner.

That span was reopened Sunday night.

According to Trudeau, the government is stepping in because the local police have had trouble enforcing the law.

“This is not a peaceful protest,” he said, adding that the emergency law is about “keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs and restoring confidence in our institutions.”

PYMNTS wrote that GOP lawmakers in the U.S. have called to investigate GoFundMe over “potential violation of federal law,” after the platform withdrew the page accepting donations supporting the truck drivers.

Read more: Capitol Hill Lawmakers Threaten to Probe GoFundMe After Trucker Fundraiser Shuttered

Sen. Ted Cruz, in a letter to the FTC, said regulators should look into whether this was illegal.

The campaign in question was dubbed the “Freedom Convoy 2022 Fundraiser” and had been launched to support the drivers, who opposed Canada’s rules around COVID-19.