The GoFundMe platform has made a "mess that doesn't have to be" by stopping donations to the Canadian trucker convoy protesting COVID mandates and then ordering the $10 million in remaining funds to be refunded to donors, Benjamin Dichter, a spokesman for Freedom Convoy 2022, told Newsmax on Saturday.
"I don't understand what the motivation is to cause themselves such chaos and sacrifice their own reputation," Dichter told "The Count." "We've moved to another platform, GiveSendGo, and in the first 24 hours, we have $1.5 million donated in the first day. It hasn't been 24 hours."
GoFundMe said Saturday it will automatically refund what is left of the estimated $10 million raised for the convoy after Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and others threatened a fraud investigation into the operation after news broke the funding source was being stopped and the money could be donated elsewhere.
Dichter told Newsmax the convoy was started to fight back against vaccine mandates that have been "very problematic to our industry," and has caused people, including those with legitimate medical reasons for not getting the shots, to lose their livelihoods.
"Second, is the vaccine passports you have to put on your phone, so when you're passing back into Canada, into your own country, you have to show your vaccine status, which is a digital system that automatically tracks you when you get close to the border," he said. "We want those two things removed and abandoned. We've seen some movement from not only the various provinces but overtures from the federal government that we would be exploring the possibility of removing the mandates."
Meanwhile, Dichter praised DeSantis for his stance on the GoFundMe issue.
"If only Canada had leaders like that, with a spine and a backbone to be able to say when things are wrong and say no," he said. "So, kudos to Ron DeSantis once again, for knocking it out of the park and understanding what the average person wants and we're very deeply motivated by and moved by."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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