OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – The organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” trucker protest have asked the Ontario Superior Court to unfreeze $450,000 in donations so they can pay for legal representation ahead of the upcoming public hearings into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act.
The money, which was donated to Tamara Lich and the other Convoy organizers through crowdfunding platforms GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, was frozen in escrow by a court earlier this year, as part of a class-action lawsuit against the protesters.
According to CTV News, Friday’s court motion also shows that Lich is in possession of two other bank accounts with over $1.3 million in donations that have likewise been frozen by the government.
The upcoming public inquiry into whether the Trudeau government was justified in its invocation of the never-before-used Emergencies Act was supposed to start on September 19, but has since been delayed until October 13, after the judge presiding over the hearings announced on Friday he needs to undergo an unforeseen surgery.
Lich and the other organizers are also facing criminal charges of mischief, for their roles in spearheading the anti-COVID mandate protest, despite the non-violent and peaceful nature of the event.
Trudeau’s government faced immense backlash when it enacted the Emergencies Act to quash the protest back in February, backlash that has only worsened after many of the claims made by the government to justify the Act have since been dispelled as falsehoods.
In addition to allowing Trudeau to deploy the national police force to physically remove protesters from the country’s capital of Ottawa, under the EA Trudeau successfully demanded financial institutions freeze the bank accounts of all those involved without court order, an unprecedented move in the nation’s history.
Following the shocking move, constitutional groups such as the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association swiftly filed motions in court to put an end to the EA’s declaration, while both domestic and international politicos accused Trudeau of ushering in authoritarian and dictatorial rule.