A Progressive Conservative party executive donated $100 to "Freedom Convoy" protesters, QP Briefing has confirmed.
The donation was made by Patti Harrison, the PC's north east regional vice-president, and sent via GiveSendGo, the Christian crowdfunding platform for Ottawa's anti-COVID mandate protesters, hours after Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency in Ottawa and days after Premier Doug Ford had decried the protest as an "occupation."
The donation was made under Harrison's name. QP Briefing confirmed her identity based on other information associated with the donation, including by independently confirming that the postal code of the credit card she used was in fact Harrison's.
Her donation, made on Feb. 6 according to leaked data from GiveSendGo, was also made the same day protesters began stalling traffic at border crossings in southwestern Ontario, including the Ambassador Bridge. The bridge, which connects Windsor to Detroit, facilitates hundreds of millions of dollars of trade between Canada and the U.S. every day.
Watson called the protest "the most serious emergency our city has ever faced" that day, during which Ottawa police arrested seven individuals for charges, including mischief. Police had also issued more than 100 tickets by that time and begun looking into 60 crimes.
Harrison included a note with her donation that said, "Hold the line! With you all the way."
When QP Briefing contacted four other members of the Progressive Conservative (PC) party's executive, two were aware of Harrison's donation and two weren't.
Asked several questions about Harrison's donation, a PC party spokesperson responded by saying, “Ms. Harrison is a volunteer and her personal views do not represent the Ontario PC Party."
Ford's office wouldn't comment, instead saying her donation was a party matter.
Vic Fedeli, the MPP for Harrison's riding and minister of economic development, job creation and trade, hasn't commented on the protests in Ottawa but did retweet comments from Ford and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association denouncing the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge on Feb. 8. Fedeli's office had not responded to a request for comment by publication time.
The leaked documents from GiveSendGo were released by the whistleblowing group Distributed Denial of Secrets, which says it was not responsible for the hack. And while GiveSendGo has since confirmed it was the victim of a cyberattack, it has not verified the contents of the leak.
On Tuesday, QP Briefing reported that Marion Isabeau-Ringuette, the director of communications for the Solicitor General Sylvia Jones, also donated $100 to the convoy. After reaching out to confirm Isabeau-Ringuette's donation, Ford's office released a statement that she was "no longer (working) for the Ontario government."
At a press conference for an unrelated announcement, QP Briefing asked Social Services Minister Merrilee Fullerton for her thoughts on Harrison’s donation, and whether government employees who donated to the convoy, such as Isabeau-Ringuette, should be able to keep their jobs. She declined to answer the questions, and instead spoke about the government's efforts to end the protests.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.