The convoy was fought partly through money and information: funding platforms shut off, donations frozen by courts and by emergency order, a donor list leaked, social pages removed — and a dispute over whether journalists could do their work. Here is what is documented, and what is still contested.
Halted citing Term 8 and police "occupation" reports, then refunded every donor.
US dollars by Feb 10 (of an eventual ~US$9.8M total), plus US$686k for "Adopt-a-Trucker" — then frozen by an Ontario court.
Records (not necessarily unique donors) — names, emails and IPs leaked after GiveSendGo was hacked.
Courts later found the Economic Order breached Charter s. 8.
The convoy was not only a physical occupation of downtown Ottawa. It was also a fight over money and information — who could fund the protest, and who could document it. That fight ran across private companies, the courts, and an emergency order, and it is still being argued over years later.
It began with funding. In early February 2022, GoFundMe halted the "Freedom Convoy 2022" fundraiser, saying it had evidence from law enforcement that a once-peaceful protest had become an "occupation" — a breach of its rules against promoting violence or harassment. After a backlash over a plan to redirect the money, GoFundMe instead refunded every donor. Organizers moved to GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site, where the campaigns had raised roughly US$8.4 million by Feb 10 (of an eventual ~US$9.8M total).
How the funds were frozen. Two different legal tools were used before the Emergencies Act. Ottawa residents won a Mareva injunction — a private court order that freezes assets so they can\'t disappear before a lawsuit is decided — first granted in early February and extended on February 16–17, covering up to ~$20 million, including about 146 cryptocurrency wallets. On February 10, Ontario used a Criminal Code restraint order (s. 490.8) to freeze the GiveSendGo donations. GiveSendGo publicly refused to comply, saying Canada had "ZERO jurisdiction" over its funds.
Then, on February 15, the federal Emergency Economic Measures Order went further. It pulled crowdfunding sites and payment processors under Canada\'s anti-money-laundering rules, and — most controversially — let banks freeze a person\'s accounts without first going to a judge. The government said the goal was to "limit funding of illegal blockades and restore public order." The order was revoked nine days later, on February 23.
Information was contested too. Meta (Facebook) removed a large US-bound "Convoy to DC 2022" group, saying it had repeatedly violated Meta\'s rules around QAnon, and removed imposter "convoy" pages run by overseas scammers. Supporters called the removals censorship of lawful political speech.
The donor leak. In mid-February, GiveSendGo was hacked. The site was defaced, and a file of donor information — names, email addresses, ZIP codes and IP addresses for roughly 92,845 donations/records in the leaked dataset (a count of records, not necessarily unique donors) — was leaked to a transparency group. Some donors were later harassed or faced consequences at work; some Ontario Provincial Police members were found to have donated, prompting an internal investigation.
Finally, there was the press. As police cleared the downtown core on February 18–20, the Canadian Association of Journalists wrote to Ottawa\'s police chief alleging that credentialed reporters had been denied access, delayed, or threatened with arrest. At the same time, some journalists were harassed or assaulted by protesters, and police said they were investigating at least one such case. Independent livestreamers — the kind of citizen-journalists this archive is built from — were also among those arrested on the scene.
A note on certainty. The platforms\' rules and the government\'s stated rationale are documented justifications. The CAJ\'s account of denied access and arrest threats is a formal allegation. The courts\' rulings on the account-freezing power are official findings. We mark which is which throughout.
Meta takes down a large Facebook group organizing a US-bound "convoy," saying it was removed "for repeatedly violating our policies around QAnon." Organizers call the removal censorship of lawful political speech.
Fox News ↗Meta says it removed imposter "trucker/freedom/convoy" pages and groups run by overseas scam operators (in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and elsewhere) that exploited the Canada convoy to drive followers to off-platform e-commerce and donation scams.
Reuters ↗GoFundMe freezes the fundraiser, citing "evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity" — a breach of Term 8 of its Terms of Service barring the promotion of violence and harassment. After backlash over an initial plan to redirect funds, GoFundMe reverses course and automatically refunds all donors (refund window through Feb 19).
GoFundMe statement ↗An Ontario Superior Court Mareva injunction — first granted in early February in the proposed class action led by Ottawa residents including Zexi Li — is extended on Feb 16–17, freezing up to roughly $20 million in convoy-linked assets, including about 146 cryptocurrency wallets and bank assets, to preserve them for a potential class-action damages claim. It is reported as the first Canadian use of a Mareva injunction to freeze cryptocurrency. The order is extended about 60 days.
Fortune ↗ CBC ↗After GoFundMe halted payments, organizers moved fundraising to the Christian platform GiveSendGo, where "Freedom Convoy 2022" had raised roughly US$8.4 million by Feb 10 (of an eventual ~US$9.8M total) and "Adopt-a-Trucker" over US$686,000. On Feb 10, the Ontario Superior Court grants the province's request (brought by AG Doug Downey under a Criminal Code restraint-order power, s. 490.8) to freeze the funds. GiveSendGo publicly refuses, posting that "Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds."
The Globe and Mail ↗GiveSendGo is defaced and redirected (to "givesendgone.wtf," with a Frozen II video backdrop calling donors "hatriots," "grifters" and "assholes"), and donor data is leaked. Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) receives ~30 MB of donor information — self-reported names, email addresses, ZIP codes and IP addresses — covering roughly 92,845 donations/records in the leaked dataset (a count of records, not necessarily unique donors).
TechCrunch ↗The federal Emergency Economic Measures Order comes into force. It extends Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act reporting to crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers (requiring FINTRAC registration) and lets financial institutions freeze or suspend accounts without a court order. The stated purpose is to "limit funding of illegal blockades and restore public order." The order is revoked Feb 23, 2022.
Public Safety Canada ↗During the clearing, police use pepper spray and stun grenades, tow 76 vehicles and arrest about 191 people (point-in-time figures, as of Feb 21, 2022). Independent and citizen livestreamers are among those arrested on scene (e.g. a streamer known as "Zot"); TikTok-prominent organizer Pat King livestreams his own Feb 18 arrest. (See The Record → The Clearing for the use-of-force account.)
CTV News ↗Journalists are also harassed and assaulted by some protesters: CTV's Glen McGregor reports obscenities and being spat at during live broadcasts ("Every time we had to go on camera, there was a little bit of dread"); a French-language reporter is shoved while live; Global's Yasmin Gandham is spat on at a B.C. protest; a CBC crew is swarmed at the Surrey border. Ottawa police report at least one active investigation into abuse of a journalist.
The Globe and Mail ↗Canadian Association of Journalists president Brent Jolly writes an open letter to interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell alleging that named, credentialed journalists (the Globe's Marieke Walsh; Global's Mercedes Stephenson; CTV's Annie Bergeron-Oliver; Justin Ling; photojournalist Carlos Osorio; NPR freelancer Emma Jacobs) were denied or delayed access during the clearing despite media passes, and that "some reporters have also been threatened with arrest for simply doing their jobs."
CAJ open letter ↗In Canadian Frontline Nurses v. Canada (AG), 2024 FC 42, Justice Richard Mosley finds the Emergencies Act invocation unreasonable and ultra vires, and that the measures infringed the Charter — freedom of expression (s. 2(b)) and the right against unreasonable search and seizure (s. 8). The s. 8 finding attaches specifically to the Economic (bank-account-freezing) measures.
2024 FC 42 (decision PDF) ↗In 2026 FCA 6, the Federal Court of Appeal dismisses the government's appeal, upholding the findings that the invocation was unreasonable and ultra vires and that ss. 2(b) and 8 were infringed. The peaceful-assembly argument (s. 2(c)) was raised by interveners but not decided. In March 2026 the government sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court; that leave application is pending as of June 19, 2026.
2026 FCA 6 summary ↗Every step here is read two ways. We set out the stated justification and the documented criticism or findings side by side, each with its sources.
Companies and authorities framed each measure as a lawful response to an unlawful, escalating situation.
Critics argued the measures became de facto censorship with little due process — and that some caused real, lasting harm.
The deepest tension here is between order and openness: authorities and platforms acted to cut off what they deemed unlawful funding and organizing, while critics — and, on the financial measures, the courts — held that some of those tools reached too far, with too little process, and left a privacy breach and a thinner public record behind. On the press question itself, no court has yet ruled.
This archive is itself part of the story. It preserves convoy livestreams that platforms later removed, age-restricted or copyright-flagged. The contributor labels below are their own; we link to independent footage from the period and flag where a clip is the direct artifact of a takedown.
This is the archive’s own running preservation record — and deliberately not a claim of mass censorship. Most of the missing footage is still online; the point is how easily it could vanish. Already 34 are no longer available on YouTube (removed or set private), and 155 Facebook clips could never be saved. A historical record this dependent on private platforms is one policy change away from disappearing.
How this archive preserves the record →The most direct tie-in to this theme: the archive metadata for this clip states it was "originally hosted on YouTube, but had to be modified due to copyright flags. Posted here in its original form." Concrete local evidence that platform enforcement altered or threatened the historical record — the reason this archive exists.
The complete livestream Press For Truth (Dan Dicks) aired during the Feb 19 clearing — over three hours, preserved here in full from YouTube on this archive’s own servers. Exactly the kind of independent-press record that platform takedowns erase. This is the whole stream as preserved; we do not single out any timestamp as depicting a specific incident.
A lawyer-streamer who livestreamed on the ground; his long-form livestreams are representative of the independent, on-site journalism the deplatforming debate centred on. (This clip is cut from a ~4-hour recording.)
Open in archive →An independent citizen-journalist channel covering invocation day (Feb 14) and the clearing (Feb 20) — primary footage from the exact period when platforms were removing or limiting convoy livestreams.
Open in archive →Aggregated day views (also /day/2022-02-18/ and /day/2022-02-20/) for the days when livestreamers and journalists were present during arrests and munitions use. We link the day view rather than assert that a specific clip depicts a specific press-freedom incident, which we have not individually confirmed.
Open in archive →The archive itself is the artifact of this theme: it preserves convoy livestreams (from YouTube and Facebook) that have since been removed or altered — the "loss of the historical record" that platform takedowns leave behind.
Open in archive →Donor-geography and breach-scale figures (~92,845 donations/records in the leaked dataset — a count of records, not necessarily unique donors; ~55.7% US / ~39% Canada) come from an aggregator citing onward sources; we report them as such and flag where a primary record was not directly confirmed.
Don\'t take anyone\'s word for it — including ours. Every factual claim above traces to one of these: the platforms\' and government\'s own statements first, then the court orders, the data-breach reporting, the press-freedom complaint, and the broader legal context.
GoFundMe's own statement halting the fundraiser, citing Term 8 (violence/harassment) and "police reports of violence and other unlawful activity" amounting to an "occupation," then reversing the redirect plan and refunding all donors. The primary source for the platform's stated rationale.
Open source ↗The official Public Safety Canada description of the order: extending AML/anti-terrorist-financing and FINTRAC rules to crowdfunding and payment processors, and authorizing banks to freeze accounts without a court order, with the stated aim to "limit funding of illegal blockades and restore public order."
Open source ↗Meta's removal of the "Convoy to DC 2022" group ("repeatedly violating our policies around QAnon"), and organizers' claim that lawful political organizing was censored.
Open source ↗Meta's removal of imposter "convoy" pages and groups run by overseas scam operators (Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and elsewhere) that exploited the Canada convoy to push off-platform e-commerce and donation scams.
Open source ↗Reports the Feb 10 Ontario Superior Court restraint order (Criminal Code s. 490.8) freezing roughly US$8.4M plus US$686k, the move from GoFundMe to GiveSendGo, and GiveSendGo's public refusal to comply ("Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction").
Open source ↗The Zexi Li-led Mareva injunction freezing about 146 cryptocurrency wallets — reported as the first Canadian use of a Mareva injunction against cryptocurrency, brought to preserve assets for a potential damages claim.
Open source ↗Reports the Mareva injunction covering up to roughly $20 million in convoy-linked assets and the court's decision to extend the freezing order by about 60 days — the source for the dollar figure and the extension.
Open source ↗Documents the GiveSendGo hack and defacement and the donor-data leak to DDoSecrets — ~30 MB including self-reported names, emails, ZIP codes and IP addresses.
Open source ↗Aggregates the breach scale (~92,845 donations/records in the leaked dataset — a count of records, not necessarily unique donors), donor geography (~55.7% US, ~39% Canada), the defacement language, and the OPP's internal conduct investigation after some officers were revealed to have donated. A secondary aggregator with onward citations.
Open source ↗The CAJ's primary complaint naming six journalists allegedly denied or delayed access or threatened with arrest during the clearing, grounded in established press-access law: the Justin Brake case (NL Court of Appeal, 2019) and a B.C. Supreme Court ruling on RCMP "exclusion zones."
Open source ↗The Public Order Emergency Commission filed the Ottawa Police media-availability videos for Feb 17 (OPS00014569), 18 (OPS00014574), 19 (OPS00014573) and 20 (OPS00014570) as exhibits — police stating publicly, on camera, what they were doing during the clearing. Set beside the CAJ access complaint, both halves of the press-access dispute are on the record.
Open source ↗Documents harassment and assault of journalists by some protesters (McGregor, Gandham, the CBC Surrey crew) and an Ottawa police investigation into abuse of a journalist — the other side of the press-freedom picture.
Open source ↗Reports the OPS point-in-time totals (as of Feb 21, 2022) from the Feb 18–20 clearing — about 191 arrests and 76 vehicles towed — context for the streamers and journalists caught in the operation.
Open source ↗The Federal Court found the Emergencies Act invocation unreasonable and ultra vires and the measures in breach of Charter ss. 2(b) and 8 — the s. 8 (unreasonable seizure) finding attaching specifically to the Economic account-freezing measures.
Open source ↗The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the government's appeal, upholding the unreasonable/ultra vires findings and the ss. 2(b) and 8 breaches; the s. 2(c) peaceful-assembly argument was raised by interveners but not decided. The Supreme Court leave application is pending as of June 19, 2026.
Open source ↗The convoy was the moment Canada tested, in real time, who controls the money behind a protest and who gets to document it. Private platforms cut off funding under their own rules; courts and an emergency order froze donations; a donor list was leaked; social pages came down; and reporters and citizen-streamers clashed with police lines.
On one part of that ledger there is now a legal answer: the account-freezing power was found to breach the Charter\'s protection against unreasonable seizure, in a ruling upheld on appeal and now before the Supreme Court. On the rest — the platform takedowns, the press-access complaint, the OPP donations, the lost livestreams — the record is mixed, contested, or unfinished.
The point of this page is to keep that record straight: the documented events, the stated justifications, the official findings, and the genuine disagreement — each tied to a source. And it is why this archive exists at all: to keep what was filmed from quietly disappearing.