A months-old injunction against Freedom Convoy organizers ended Monday, but the lawyers responsible for muting incessant honking in February are focused on expanding and certifying a proposed class-action lawsuit to ensure Ottawa residents and businesses are compensated.
Lawyers representing Ottawa residents in the proposed lawsuit against convoy protesters successfully argued for a Mareva injunction on Feb. 17, a court order meant to restrict convoy leaders from “selling, removing, dissipating, alienating, transferring, assigning” up to $20 million in assets raised around the world.
On Monday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Calum MacLeod said the injunction would be dissolved.
MacLeod did keep an escrow order that ensures a third-party agent could continue to hold just more than $5.7 million raised by the convoy protests until lawyers decide what will happen to the money.
Paul Champ, one of the lawyers involved in the proposed class-action lawsuit, originally said a broad net was cast to capture funds from the Freedom Convoy.
“We’ve gotten most of the funds that we were trying to freeze now,” he said.
Lawyer Paul Champ hopes residents and businesses of downtown Ottawa will receive compensation for the convoy protests through the proposed class-action lawsuit. (CBC)
More money brought into escrow over past month
As of March 30, nearly $2 million in assets were being held by the third party, according to the escrow agent’s last official report.
Then on Monday, the court ordered for roughly $3.8 million Cdn raised on the U.S.-based crowdfunding site, GiveSendGo, to be transferred to escrow.
The site had transferred that money to a Canadian bank account belonging to the not-for-profit corporation created by organizers. Instead the money was held by a payment processing company because of freeze orders put in place in February to prevent the money from being used by protesters.
More than $400,000 Cdn worth of digital currencies was also moved into escrow.
Proposed class-action suit set to move forward
Champ and his team are expected to expand the scope of the proposed class-action lawsuit to include thousands of defendants — including donors and more truck drivers involved — as they seek to reimburse downtown residents and businesses.
Defendants would then file their own materials before the court decides whether to certify the class-action suit.
“We finished our efforts to track and get control of all funds that were donated to support the convoy truckers and that were donated to essentially make it possible for the truckers to continue their occupation of downtown Ottawa and continue the harm of downtown Ottawa,” said Champ.
His team hopes the money now in escrow “will hopefully one day go to compensating the people of downtown Ottawa.”
Most funds raised for convoy returned to donors
The convoy protest in Ottawa raised more than $20 million total over its three-week stay in the city’s downtown.
Tamara Lich, the convoy leader who had access to a significant amount of money through her role in organizing the protest — for which she has since been charged — helped raise nearly $10.1 million before donations were suspended.
The website used to raise that money, GoFundMe, then returned most of those funds to the original donors as of Feb. 5, the company said.
The almost $1.4 million that remained in Lich’s possession was then transferred into escrow.
Two fundraisers launched on GiveSendGo raised more than $12 million and during a March 9 court appearance, GiveSendGo co-founder and chief financial officer Jacob Wells said donations would be returned to donors.
When asked by CBC, the company refused to disclose the total amount reimbursed.
Most of the digital currency raised as part of convoy fundraisers — 20.7 bitcoin (worth almost $1.1 million Cdn) — continues to evade authorities.
Authorities are believed to be monitoring the remaining bitcoin but it remains unclear if they will be successful in capturing it.
TORONTO – The Professional Women’s Hockey League has revealed the jersey designs for its six newly named teams.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe rallied to defeat Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk 4-6, 6-3, (10-6) on Thursday at the WTA Finals.
With the win, Dabrowski and Routliffe completed the round-robin stage with a perfect 3-0 record at the season-ending tournament, which features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
The No. 2 seeds secured first place in their pool with the win, rallying from a set and break down to finish the match in 93 minutes.
Dolehide and Krawczyk, who defeated Dabrowski and Routliffe in the final at Toronto’s National Bank Open in August, closed their first WTA Finals with a 0-3 record.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will face American Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Australia’s Ellen Perez, who finished second in their group with a 2-1 record, in Friday’s semifinal.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A strong typhoon was forecast to hit the northern Philippines on Thursday, prompting a new round of evacuations in a region still recovering from back-to-back storms a few weeks ago.
Typhoon Yinxing is the 13th to batter the disaster-prone Southeast Asian nation this season.
“I really pity our people but all of them are tough,” Gov. Marilou Cayco of the province of Batanes said by telephone. Her province was ravaged by recent destructive storms and is expected to be affected by Yinxing’s fierce wind and rain.
Tens of thousands of villagers were returning to emergency shelters and disaster-response teams were again put on alert in Cagayan and other northern provinces near the expected path of Yinxing. The typhoon was located about 175 kilometers (109 miles) east of Aparri town in Cagayan province on Thursday morning.
The slow-moving typhoon, locally named Marce, was packing sustained winds of up to 165 kilometers (102 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 205 kph (127 mph) and was forecast to hit or come very near to the coast of Cagayan and outlying islands later Thursday.
The coast guard, army, air force and police were put on alert. Inter-island ferries and cargo services and domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces.
Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey hit the northern Philippines in recent weeks, leaving at least 151 people dead and affecting nearly 9 million others. More than 14 billion pesos ($241 million) worth of rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.
The deaths and destruction from the storms prompted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to declare a day of national mourning on Monday when he visited the worst-hit province of Batangas, south of the capital, Manila. At least 61 people perished in the coastal province.
Trami dumped one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some regions, including in Batangas.
“We want to avoid the loss of lives due to calamities,” Marcos said in Talisay town in Batangas, where he brought key Cabinet members to reassure storm victims of rapid government help. “Storms nowadays are more intense, extensive and powerful.”
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.
