LETTER: Questions raised about Osoyoos mayoral candidate's Freedom Convoy mea culpa

OPINION

Osoyoos First mayoral candidate Dustin Sikora Monday evening quietly released a lengthy response on the Osoyoos First Facebook page that attempts to explain a donation to fund the so-called Freedom Convoy.

His response, he explains is an effort to answer those who would “misdirect your attention” with “divisive conjecture and nefarious imagineering.”

However, he also said he wanted to provide “you the voter with the highest level of clarity that you deserve.”

In that spirit, I would suggest some questions he might want to answer and some concerns his bankrolling of the Freedom Convoy raises about his capacity to serve as mayor.

Did he provide TWO donations to the Freedom Convoy?

Mr. Sikora said in his response that he made a donation in mid-January. That would, I have to assume, either have been through GoFundMe or through another process, perhaps even directly to truckers departing the Lower Mainland or the South Okanagan.

The reason I ask is he was included in a leaked list of more than 92,000 donors to GiveSendGo, a US-based Christian crowdfunding website notorious, as one observer has noted, as a “platform for individuals and organized groups to fund hate groups, promote disinformation and insurrection disguised as “protests.”

It set up Freedom Convoy fundraising after GoFundMe was shut down, which means his contribution could not have been made any earlier than early February.

By then, of course, the protest was in full effect in downtown Ottawa, with protesters blocking streets and relentlessly blaring horns and causing utter chaos. More than 1,000 vehicles and 5,000 people — many with ties to QAnon, Western Separatists, MAGA Trumpists and Conspiracy Theorists — were involved. And, of course, the trouble spilled over into other border communities, including Windsor, Coutts and Osoyoos.

Voters should remind themselves how those events impacted them personally and influenced the national psyche.

They should also ask how it might be possible Mr. Sikora completely missed the mayhem or didn’t understand what was happening when he bankrolled the effort with a $24,000 contribution.

I say bankrolled because $200, $500 or even $1,000 is a donation — a sum that appears much more in line with the delivery of safety gear — protective eyewear, rubber gloves and a mask and filters — his company made to Lower Mainland nurses.

Being outed among the top-five contributors to a cause is much more than that.

Even if his focus was, as he says, to support those fighting COVID-19 vaccination, how is it possible he couldn’t see the GiveSendGo funding was also going to support, as someone else has said on the Osoyoos First page, a multitude that had “hopes of overthrowing a democratically elected government?”

Why did he not pick another local means to support his effort? Or at least a national one that was solely funnelling funding to anti-vaccination efforts?

And why does it appear he's now either telling a half-truth or completely misleading Osoyoos voters with his statement?

Cheers,

Andrew Stuckey

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