GiveSendGo Says It Will Refund Remaining Donations to Truckers Convoy

GiveSendGo, the fundraising platform turned to by many who looked to support the Canadian trucker convoy after GoFundMe refunded donations made to campaigns supporting the group, announced Thursday that it will also be refunding donations from several campaigns.

"The Canadian government has criminalized the receiving of funds from the Canadian trucker campaigns and are now trying to seize the funds to redistribute," the company said in a Thursday morning tweet. "In order to protect our Givers and the intended purposes of their gifts, funds not already transferred to the recipients from the 'Freedom Trucker Convoy' campaign will be refunded. Additional information will be posted shortly. Thank you for your patience."

Last month, Canadian officials allowed banks to begin freezing the accounts of people who were confirmed to be involved in the protests, which included those who donated to the GoFundMe and GiveSendGo fundraisers for the convoy.

Days prior, GoFundMe had announced that it was halting the fundraisers connected to the protests, which led to millions being raised for the convoy on GiveSendGo in the following weeks.

The Emergencies Act was invoked last month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to the protest of truckers who drove across the country, blocking highways and roads in protest of COVID vaccine and mask mandates.

The move allowed for the expansion of money-laundering and terrorist finance laws to include companies like GiveSendGo that were found to be assisting the anti-government protests. The expansion also required GveSendGo to register with the government's financial intelligence agency and report "large and suspicious" transactions to the government, Newsweek previously reported.

"It gives me no pleasure to impose any of these measures. In fact, we do so with great sorrow but do not doubt our determination to act, to defend our democracy, to defend our economy and to restore peace," Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at the time. "The consequences are real and they will bite."

The refund of the donations has become a controversial topic in a proposed class-action lawsuit in which possible claimants who were negatively affected by the convoy and could have received the seized funds say that refunding the donations could be a violation of the order freezing the accounts, according to the Alberta Prime Times.

Justice Calum MacLeod disagreed and said that the point of the proposed class-action lawsuit was to recover funds that were "clearly" in the possession of the truckers who may have been disrupting communities with their protest, not undistributed funds on platforms like GiveSendGo, the Alberta Prime Times reported.

GiveSendGo was also the subject of a February hack that reportedly resulted in the publication of private information of people who donated to the campaigns, Newsweek previously reported.

Update 3/10/22, 8:20 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and context.