Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 28 Feb, 2022 01:15 PM
An Ontario court has extended to March 9 a freezing order on funds donated to the recent Ottawa convoy protest, as a class-action civil suit against protest organizers continues.
Parties in the case have agreed to move some donated funds and cryptocurrency into escrow, which could be redistributed to affected Ottawa residents and business owners should the class action succeed.
Norman Groot, a lawyer representing some convoy protest leaders, says ChristopherGarrah, Benjamin Dichter and Nicholas St. Louis have agreed in principle to moving donated funds within their control to an escrow account.
Groot notes the funds that Garrah, Dichter and St. Louis have agreed to move to escrow might not account for all the cryptocurrency that was donated, and he proposed parties meet next week to take stock of what has been transferred.
An escrow agent will oversee the transferred funds, and will be permitted to change the passwords for cryptocurrency.
The class-action lawsuit seeks a total of $306 million in damages related to the three-week anti-government convoy protest near Parliament Hill that snarled traffic, shut businesses and plagued residents with near-constant honking.
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, along with the ministers of transportation and agriculture, are set to host a morning news conference. It comes after a weekend that saw soldiers arrive to help farmers save livestock and lend a hand in sandbagging efforts.
There are currently 3,420 active cases of COVID-19 in B.C. That total includes 358 infectious patients in hospital, 109 of them in intensive care units.
This order, effective immediately, until Dec. 1, 2021, applies to all fuel suppliers in the Lower Mainland-to-Hope region, the Sea-to-Sky region, Sunshine Coast, the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island.
In a letter to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, the NDP critic on the file notes that federal officials in the spring looked into which families would lose the most in benefits this year.
In a landmark 2013 decision, the Supreme Court declared the provision against living on the avails of sex work to be overbroad and in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For instance, the law criminalized actions, such as working as a bodyguard, that could enhance the safety of sex workers.
Henry Braun said Friday that ultimately, the entire dam may have to be rebuilt to a higher standard to protect a major farming area called Sumas Prairie, which suffered extensive flooding as water gushed in from the Nooksack River from neighbouring Washington state.
