Of course he did:
Nine days into the “Freedom Convoy” protests in Canada, an anti-vaccine group protesting new border regulations, Donald Trump has praised it and called Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far-left lunatic.”
The protests started on January 29, led by campaigners opposed to the mandate that truckers crossing the US-Canada border must be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The protests, which are being investigated by police for criminal activity and have brought parts of the capital Ottowa to a standstill, have been praised by Donald Trump whilst he simultaneously criticizes Trudeau.
“The Freedom Convoy is peacefully protesting the harsh policies of far-left lunatic Justin Trudeau, who has destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates,” said Trump in a statement. He did not comment on reports that Freedom Convoy members had been arrested for causing mischief to property, carrying a weapon to a public meeting, and issuing threats on social media while in Ottawa.
“Our goal is to end the demonstration,” Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly said Friday morning according to Global News Canada, noting that the protests have led to “a lot of unacceptable and unlawful activities.”
Up to 400 additional trucks are expected to try to enter the city this weekend, to join the 50-60 that have been camped in Canada’s capital for days, along with another 1000 to 2000 people on foot, say reports.
There were also reports of hundreds of trucks blocking the border in Alberta, earlier this week.Lars Hagberg/AFP/Getty Images
Trump added that “the Freedom Convoy could be coming to DC with American Truckers who want to protest Biden’s ridiculous COVID policies.”
Canada has some of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the world, with 82% of citizens over the age of five vaccinated, according to the Canadian government.
The Freedom Convoy has raised C$10m ($7.9m) on GoFundMe. But the fundraising site is now withholding funds due to reports of the group committing violence across Canada.
He’s inciting American truckers to do the same thing in Washington DC. I’m not sure what they would be protesting since there are no government vaccine mandates for private employers but maybe he can persuade them to storm another government building.
Here’s the story of the GoFundMe and it isn’t pretty. As of this morning they are refunding all of the money collected.
Donald Trump is endorsing the Ottawa convoy, calling Justin Trudeau a “far left lunatic who has destroyed Canada,” and backing an attempt to bring a similar truck protest to DC
This campaign is extremely suspect.
By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | February 4th 2022
I’ve spent almost 30 years involved with, studying and writing about the Canadian non-profit and charitable sector. Not only is the interference by Trump and his flunkies unprecedented, the campaign’s donation pattern is wholly unreliable.
To any knowledgeable observer just looking at the data itself, the irregularities are a five-alarm fire.
The convoy campaign, organized by a previously obscure Canadian group, now ranks as the eighth-largest in GoFundMe’s 12-year history. It joins the pantheon of fundraisers supporting the family of George Floyd, victims of the Parkland (Marjory Stoneman Douglas) and Pulse shootings, Time’s Up (related to #MeToo) and major American COVID-19 relief projects.
“The irregularities of this campaign are a five-alarm fire,” writes @garossino for @natobserver about the #GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the #Ottawa #trucker protest. #cdnpoli
At the time of its suspension, the convoy campaign had racked up approximately $10.1 million in just over two weeks.
Any Canadian fundraiser will tell you this number is impossible to achieve organically within Canada. This group is not a registered charity, non-profit or even a trucking organization. Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly is on record saying there is significant influence and money pouring in from the United States.
GoFundMe did not independently verify donor identities and accepted foreign funds for a campaign that had as one objective the dissolution of Parliament — just months after a free and fair election, in which 60 per cent of the electorate voted for parties supporting vaccine mandates.
As the CBC has reported on January 28, at least a third of the donor identities were anonymous or faked. Donations were made in the names of Justin Trudeau and Theresa Tam.
Indeed, one fake donation was made in the name of this publication’s columnist, Max Fawcett. There are certain to be many more. These are just the identities that can be verified as fake.
For more direct Canadian context, the 2018 fund for the Humboldt Broncos also ranks in the top 10. That effort raised $15 million from 142,000 donors in 80 countries, reflecting broad international support for the bereaved families.
And the false identities are not the only abnormality. Most of the top 10 campaigns fall under two categories: American COVID relief efforts or victim support for traumatic violent events of national scale, such as the Humboldt accident, George Floyd’s murder or the Parkland, Las Vegas and Pulse Nightclub shootings.
In cases where there has been a political facet to a successful campaign, it has been of vastly higher profile, with established organizational capacity and public participation on a mass scale.
The Time’s Up campaign was linked to the #MeToo movement and the 2017 Women’s March, which attracted three to five million marchers across the U.S. An estimated 15 million to 26 million Americans marched in support of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. The March For Our Lives, organized by student survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Parkland, Fla., attracted an estimated 1.2 million to two million marchers. The Pulse Nightclub shooting inspired massive recognition and is memorialized at Pride parades, which attract millions of participants annually across the United States and Canada.
Indeed, the advance billing of the protest was impressive, as when former NHL legend Theo Fleury told Fox News that 50,000 trucks and 1.4 million Canadians would participate in the rally.
By comparison, police estimates put the Ottawa convoy demonstration somewhat lower, at between 8,000 and 15,000, with just a few hundred commercial haulers.
By mid-week, fewer than 300 demonstrators remained on the ground.
On Friday a lawsuit against the “Freedom Convoy” was filed by Ottawa citizens seeking damages for emotional distress caused by the incessant noise of truck horns. Tellingly, a mere sixty trucks parked in the protest area are named in the suit.
Which may explain the necessity of constant noise and stunts to keep media from noticing how few Canadians are actually involved.
This is not George Floyd, the Parkland school shooting, or the Women’s March.
For all the Sturm und Drang, the convoy is an extraordinarily weak national turnout in a country where 500,000 showed up to a climate march in Montreal. Or even 60,000 to a marijuana celebration in Vancouver. Absent the trucks, which are really just big, noisy props, it was essentially a national anti-vax rally, which has now turned so dangerous that police are afraid to break it up.
The low turnout is even more surprising in the midst of massive American promotion by those in the Trump orbit, Fox News, Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, Mike Flynn, Joe Rogan and many others. It’s been relentlessly promoted on social media by, among others, Rebel Media and Pizzagate alumnus Jack Posobiec. With his 1.6 million followers, Posobiec, the Roger Stone acolyte, is widely regarded as the voice of Trump’s id.
With all this in mind, this exercise has the hallmarks of an op, complete with the potential for wire fraud and money laundering, and possibly a dry run for an American uprising.
Given the convoy project’s stated objective of overturning the results of a free and fair election through the dissolution of Parliament, a thorough investigation of the GoFundMe campaign is now a matter of urgent national security importance.
The time for answers and accountability is right now.