Canada says it will freeze the bank accounts of ‘Freedom Convoy’ truckers who continue their anti-vaccine mandate blockades

• Canada says it will freeze the bank accounts of truckers who continue to form “Freedom Convoys.”
• On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared a national emergency to combat the protests.
• Canadian truckers have been protesting vaccine mandates for weeks by blocking streets and bridges.

The Canadian government has warned that it will freeze the bank accounts and suspend the vehicle insurance of truckers who continue to form blockades in protest of vaccine mandates, as the country declares a national emergency to quell the resulting gridlock.

“This is about following the money. This is about stopping the financing of these illegal blockades,” said Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland at a press conference on Monday.

“We are today serving notice if your truck is being used in these illegal blockades, your corporate accounts will be frozen. The insurance on your vehicle will be suspended,” she continued, adding at another point in the conference that personal financial accounts would be included in the order.

“Send your semi-trailers home. The Canadian economy needs them to be doing legitimate work, not to be illegally making us all poorer,” Freeland also said.

—Toronto Star (@TorontoStar) February 14, 2022

Trudeau’s administration is authorizing banks to freeze or suspend accounts suspected of being involved in illegal activity without the need for a court order, Freeland said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who stood behind Freeland as she spoke, announced on the same day that he would be enacting Canada’s far-reaching Emergencies Act for the first time in the country’s history.

It’s his administration’s latest effort to combat the anti-vaccine mandate “Freedom Convoy” protests, which started in Ottawa on January 28 and have since spread across the country. For weeks, truckers have been blocking city streets and critical bridges and disrupting Canada’s trade routes and supply chain.

The Emergencies Act empowers the Canadian government to temporarily override civil rights, restrict travel, forbid public assembly, and force businesses to act without compensation. 

“The scope of these measures will be time-limited, geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address,” Trudeau said, adding that he doesn’t plan to deploy the military.

At the press conference, Freeland also said that Canada would be expanding the scope of its anti-laundering and terrorist financing rules to cover cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding platforms.

Supporters of the protesting truckers have tried to fund the Freedom Convoy through bitcoin and crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe, raising millions in the last few weeks. On February 5, GoFundMe blocked $10 million in donations to the truckers, prompting supporters to raise $900,000 in bitcoin, Insider’s Hamza Fareed Malik reported.

“The illegal blockades have highlighted the fact that crowdfunding platforms and some of the payment service providers they use are not fully captured under the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act,” Freeland added.

As of Monday, all crowdfunding platforms and their payment service providers have to register with Canada’s national financial intelligence agency and report large and suspicious transactions, she said.