The occu­pa­tion con­voys that have obstruct­ed life in Canada’s cap­i­tal of Ottawa and dis­rupt­ed U.S.-Canada bor­der cross­ings have been fueled by mil­lions of dol­lars in dona­tions from the Unit­ed States, where the cause has been embraced by right-wing media and ex-Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

The con­voys began as an action direct­ed at Canada’s vac­cine man­date for truck dri­vers enter­ing the Great White North, but quick­ly embraced a crazy quilt of caus­es. The Ottawa occu­piers demand­ed that the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al and Canada’s Sen­ate act to depose Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau’s gov­ern­ment, then pro­ceed to roll back vac­cine and mask require­ments in all ten Cana­di­an provinces. (The Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al is cer­e­mo­ni­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Queen Eliz­a­beth II in Canada.)

The protests have gen­er­at­ed mas­sive atten­tion but drawn lit­tle pub­lic sup­port In Cana­da. But they have been embraced by Trump’s “MAGA” move­ment in Amer­i­ca, its pro­pa­gan­da arm and even its donors.

A group called Delib­er­ate Denial of Secrets hacked an osten­si­bly Chris­t­ian crowd­fund­ing site called GiveSend­Go, cat­a­loging 92,844 donors of whom 56 per­cent were Amer­i­cans. Out of $8.2 mil­lion donat­ed between Feb­ru­ary 2nd and 10th, $3.6 mil­lion came from south of the bor­der and $4.5 mil­lion from Canada.

Many of the dona­tions were made anonymously.

Among those on the record, Thomas Siebel, a Sil­i­con Val­ley bil­lion­aire, who was down for $90,000: $20,000 came from Texas con­struc­tion CEO Ben­jamin Pogue, who once loaned his pri­vate jet to Don­ald Trump.

As the truck­er-led con­voy rolled into Ottawa, about $10 mil­lion Cana­di­an ($7.9 mil­lion U.S.) was donat­ed through GoFundMe.

It was cut off when the roots of the protest and its tac­tics became apparent.

“We now have evi­dence from law enforce­ment that the pre­vi­ous­ly peace­ful demon­stra­tion has become an occu­pa­tion, with police reports of vio­lence and oth­er unlaw­ful activ­i­ty,” GoFundMe said in a state­ment.

Imme­di­ate­ly, Flori­da Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis and Texas Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton announced that they would inves­ti­gate GoFundMe.

Don­ald Trump, Jr. has sec­ond­ed the call for an investigation.

“It’s a fraud to com­mand $9 mil­lion in dona­tions sent to sup­port truck­ers and give it to caus­es of their own choos­ing,” DeSan­tis tweeted.

(GoFundMe ini­tial­ly said the protest-bound dol­lars would instead go to char­i­ty. It lat­er announced intent to refund the money.)

The protest orga­niz­ers turned to GiveSend­Go and sub­se­quent­ly to an out­fit called Adopt a Truck­er. All told, more mon­ey has flowed toward the con­voy protest than was giv­en to Canada’s three major polit­i­cal par­ties in the last quar­ter of 2021. One per­cent of donors has account­ed for twen­ty per­cent of the mon­ey donated.

The dona­tions through GiveSend­Go were accom­pa­nied by fight­ing words.

“Death to all lib­er­al trai­tors,” wrote one donor.

Anoth­er, fol­low­ing the Trump pat­tern of cap­i­tal let­ters, mes­saged: Cabal piglets are cor­rupt crim­i­nals who need severe pun­ish­ment under law. An amaz­ing 13,000 of the dona­tions came accom­pa­nied by ref­er­ences to “God” or “Jesus.”

What and who has fueled sup­port from “the states.”

Don­ald Trump sang the occupation’s prais­es at a Texas ral­ly, and has sub­se­quent­ly described Prime Min­is­ter Trudeau as a “far left lunatic” who “destroyed Cana­da with insane COVID man­dates.” He has called on truck­ers to motor on Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to “protest Biden’s ridicu­lous COVID policies.”

Sen­a­tor Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, has tak­en up the idea. Inter­viewed by a Her­itage Foun­da­tion pub­li­ca­tion, he advo­cat­ed dis­rup­tion and occu­pa­tion on this side of the 49th Par­al­lel. “I’m all for it,” said Paul. “Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is a time-hon­ored tra­di­tion in our coun­try, from slav­ery to civ­il rights, you name it. Peace­ful protest, clog things up, make peo­ple think about the mandates.”

Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz, R‑Texas, has weighed in, say­ing: “Those truck dri­vers – God bless them – they’re defend­ing Cana­da, but they’re defend­ing Amer­i­ca as well.”

To hear Cruz speak of “defend­ing” is a curi­ous choice of words.

Dam­ag­ing more accu­rate­ly described what was done.

Until cleared Mon­day, the protest had blocked the Ambas­sador Bridge between Wind­sor, Ontario, and Detroit. The bridge car­ries a quar­ter of all traf­fic between the two coun­tries and is vital to auto­mo­bile man­u­fac­tur­ing in both. Ford and Toy­ota had to tem­porar­i­ly shut down assem­bly lines. The Pacif­ic High­way cross­ing, in Blaine, car­ries West Coast truck traf­fic. The holdup at a cross­ing in Coutts, Alber­ta, blocked agri­cul­tur­al exports to the Unit­ed States.

At the Coutts cross­ing, Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police made thir­teen arrests and con­fis­cat­ed an arms cache that includ­ed guns, armor, ammu­ni­tion, thir­teen long guns, hand­guns, body armor and high-capac­i­ty mag­a­zines. The RCMP said the arse­nal was part of “a will­ing­ness to use force against the police.”

Of course, the intim­i­da­tion side of the move­ment has not been broad­cast to Fox view­ers. Instead, the right’s par­ty line has been of peace­ful protest and indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty. “The Cana­di­an truck­er con­voy is the sin­gle most effec­tive human rights move­ment in a gen­er­a­tion,” Tuck­er Carl­son told his viewers.

Prime Min­is­ter Trudeau sought to wait out the occu­pa­tion of his capital.

On Mon­day, how­ev­er, he evoked Canada’s Emer­gen­cies Act, giv­ing him addi­tion­al pow­ers as Ottawa and Ontario police began to clear the down­town area.

Tuck­er Carl­son react­ed by charg­ing that Trudeau had declared “mar­tial law,” warn­ing: “Cana­da-style tyran­ny on its way here.”

And: “He (Trudeau) is not wor­ried about unvac­ci­nat­ed truck­ers spread­ing a virus. Trudeau is wor­ried about Cana­di­ans resist­ing his rule.”

Huh? Had Trump not monop­o­lized the term “Big Lie,” it would apply to the occu­pa­tion con­voy cov­er­age in far right U.S. media.

By stok­ing fear and cre­at­ing bogey­men – in a peace­ful next-door coun­try that just reelect­ed Trudeau’s gov­ern­ment – they have caused fol­low­ers to send mil­lions across the 49th Par­al­lel, much of which has got­ten through.

Cana­da is “fol­low­ing the mon­ey,” in words of Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Chrys­tia Free­land. The province of Ontario has gone to court to cut it off.

A warn­ing, on both sides of the bor­der, as to how the right deploys its mouth­pieces, mon­ey and fol­low­ers. We saw it here on Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021.

Cana­da is now get­ting the treatment.