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.
The companies say the facility will be sold to resolve the Competition Commissioner of Canada's concerns about the implication on the purchase of wood fibre from the Thompson/Okanagan region in British Columbia.
The area is under an evacuation order because of flooding in the nearby Sumas River. Police-enforced roadblocks have been set up around the area to prevent people from coming or going.
The Mounties say in a statement they responded to a crash on Highway 97C south of Logan Lake around 12:15 p.m. Thursday. They say the crash was between a large utility vehicle and a passenger vehicle carrying the child, whose age was not released.
There are 3,345 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 208,284 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 355 individuals are currently in hospital and 110 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.
The federal government has scheduled a media briefing with officials at 10 a.m. Friday to share news regarding authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children.
The RCMP wouldn't confirm Thursday if arrests had been made. A spokesperson for protesters who set up a blockade along the road said in a video posted online that officers had read out the injunction order and then began arresting people.
