Large number of donations to protest convoy came from aliases, unnamed donors
CBC
At least a third of the donations to the GoFundMe campaign set up to support the convoy of trucks headed to Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates came from anonymous sources or were attributed to fake names, according to an analysis by CBC News.
While thousands of Canadians and Canadian businesses have dipped into their pockets to fund the cause, thousands of other donors to the campaign are listed simply as "Anonymous."
As of 6:30 p.m. ET Thursday, six of the top 10 donations, all over $10,000, were listed as anonymous, including the single largest donation of $25,022.
While the campaign is fundraising for a Canadian political protest, some donations appear to have come from outside of Canada, based on comments left by donors on GoFundMe.
Some donations were made using the names of other people. Among the most common donor names listed on the GoFundMe site are Justin Trudeau, Sophie Trudeau and Theresa Tam — the name of Canada's chief public health officer.
On Thursday afternoon, a $25,023 donation was listed as coming from Sophie Grégoire. It disappeared minutes later.
Officials in the Prime Minister's Office and Tam's office confirmed that neither the Trudeaus nor Tam donated to the convoy's fundraising campaign.
Other listed donors identified themselves as "Fidel Castro - Justin Trudeau's dad," "Justin Trudeau's conscience," "Dump Trudeau" or used a number of other phrases laden with obscenities.
Some aliases were less obvious. A $15,100 donation Wednesday afternoon put the name David Fisman at the top of the GoFundMe donations list for a day.
Dr. David Fisman, a professor in epidemiology at Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said his family name is rare because it was the result of a spelling error made when his family immigrated.
"Given that whoever did this also wrote 'follow me on Twitter' in the comments, and I have a fairly well known (by Canadian standards) verified Twitter account with 110,000 followers that seems to be much detested and disparaged by opponents of vaccines and public health measures, I think it's reasonable to assume that this was intended to be seen as a donation that I had made," said Fisman.
Donations to the convoy have been growing rapidly. By 6:30 p.m Thursday, the campaign had raised $6.4 million from 82,500 donors.
Questions have been raised about the destination of the money, particularly since some of the organizers have been involved in politics.
GoFundMe — which gets a percentage of all the money donated — delayed disbursement of the funds earlier this week, saying it wanted to know more about how the money was going to be used. It announced Thursday that it would begin releasing money after the organizers of the fundraising campaign provided a distribution plan for the funds.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.