Report Distributed by Former Ottawa Police Chief Says Freedom Convoy a ‘Right Wing Christian’ Movement

A protester holds a sign on Wellington St. during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times)

A report authored by a police consultant and distributed by the former Ottawa Police Service (OPS) chief says the Freedom Convoy protests were a “movement by right wing Christians” who wished to attract followers.

“It’s a movement by right wing Christians who used mandates as a pretense to gain a following and privileged access as ‘protesters,'” wrote Erin Kelly, CEO of the contracted market research firm Advanced Symbolics Inc., in an email to Ottawa Police officials on Feb. 6, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

OPS chief at the time, Peter Sloly, urged in a subsequent email that the consultant’s report be widely distributed among OPS officials, saying that it provides “really important insights.”

Kelly also said in his email that the Freedom Convoy protest “isn’t really about vaccine mandates,” according to evidence gathered by Advanced Symbolics.

“Given that today is the Lord’s Day, we are starting to see some of the real agenda here,” Kelly said, adding that he included in the email pictures of “religious images being passed around on social [media] among the ‘protesters.'”

“More evidence this isn’t really about vaccine mandates,” he continued.

Kelly also alleged that demonstrators only posed as protesting vaccine mandates in order to attract larger crowds.

“If they’d said, ‘Join us for a Christian rally in Ottawa,’ no one would have come.”

‘Calm, Festive’

An Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) internal memo distributed on the same day the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act described the Freedom Convoy as “calm, festive and family oriented.”

“Speakers were again telling people to walk away from agitators and thanked the police for remaining calm. Many of the speakers were promoting love and peaceful protest, some even taking quotes from the Bible,” read the memo “Operational Intelligence Report,” dated Feb. 14.

Provincial police added in the memo that speakers at the protests were “wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s [Day]” and also that there were “children on Wellington Street playing hockey.”

Many donations to the Freedom Convoy came through the online crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, the founders of which state their mission to be sharing “the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding.”

“That continues to be our focus as we stand for freedom,” reads the platform’s website.

More than $13 million of the total $25 million donated to the Freedom Convoy was sent through GiveSendGo, according to Blacklock’s.

The platform’s co-founder Jacob Wells told a parliamentary committee in March that GiveSendGo “doesn’t fund things” itself, but allows individuals to start fundraising campaigns on the platform.

“They get funding from their supporters,” Wells told the House of Commons public safety committee on March 3.

Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed asked Wells if GiveSendGo was aware of Freedom Convoy protesters speaking “publicly of the desire to commit violence against the government and to overthrow the government.”

“That was not something that we were aware of,” Wells replied. “Obviously, there are always fringe elements to any organization.”

“I believe the media in general just tries to polarize the fringe things because it’s great for the media.”