Ottawa Police Targets Officer Who Donated to Freedom Convoy

It seems like ages ago that the Freedom Convoy, those brave Canadian truckers who drove into the country’s capital of Ottawa to protest COVID-19 mandates, dominated the news cycle. The far-left government of Canada — particularly Prime Minister Justin “Let’s do karaoke while we’re in town for the royal funeral” Trudeau — falsely labeled the convoy as a group of dangerous and even racist insurrectionists. (Sound familiar?)

Shortly after the Freedom Convoy opened a GoFundMe account to allow for donations, the crowdfunding site shut the page down. GoFundMe claimed that it had “evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.” As a result, the convoy moved its fundraising efforts to GiveSendGo.

Canadian government officials are continuing their authoritarian ways months after the convoy left Ottawa. The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) has charged one of its officers for allegedly making a donation to the convoy back in February. Constable Kristina Neilson faces charges of discreditable conduct over her support of the Freedom Convoy.

“The allegations were served to Neilson last month, alleging that she knew that the convoy was an ‘illegal occupation’ but donated to the protest—which was by and large peaceful—anyway,” reports the Post Millennial.

Baked into the charges against Neilson is an accusation that American conservatives were bankrolling the Freedom Convoy as an attempt to destabilize Canada — a claim that’s patently false. The president of GoFundMe testified that the vast majority of donations to the convoy came from Canadians.

GoFundMe’s Juan Benitez told Canada’s House of Commons that “roughly $1.2 million came from outside the US. 88 percent of the funds were donated by Canadians, with 86 percent of the donors being Canadian,” as the Post Millennial reported back in March.

(I would be willing to bet that Canada’s leftists didn’t have any problem with donations to Black Lives Matter coming from the U.S. in 2020, but I digress.)

Flashback: Canadian Truckers Say They’re ‘Digging in for the Long Haul’

Neilson allegedly donated to the GiveSendGo on February 5, only a week after the convoy arrived in the city and well before Ottawa Police began to crack down on convoy activity. But her employer wants to retroactively label her a subversive.

“OPS claims that the donation to the Freedom Convoy’s fundraiser was ‘acting in a disorderly manner’ and that she should have reasonably known that donating to the convoy amounted to financial support of the ‘illegal occupation,’” reports True North.

At every level, the Canadian government has made it clear that dissent isn’t welcome. As early as March, OPS Interim Chief Steve Bell stated that his department wouldn’t abide any employee who supported the Freedom Convoy.

“We need to deal with the people who supported it, because there’s no room for them,” he commented on a television news program.

Worse still, the public Canadian Broadcasting Corporation doxxed officers whose names came up when hackers breached and released GiveSendGo’s data. Let it sink in that a public news network leaked the names of people who donated to a cause that questioned the policies of the people in power.

It’s not clear what Nielson’s next steps are or what recourse she has, but here’s hoping that her case can bring more attention to the issue of the lack of free speech in Canada.