A prominent Canadian civil rights lawyer has her bank account frozen, and she has been given notice to find a new bank. According to correspondence from the Royal Bank of Canada, the situation was triggered by a Bitcoin transaction, and if transactions appear suspicious, then banks are required by law to take action. On the other hand, lots of people buy and sell Bitcoin, so do they all get investigated? And was it nothing to do with Bitcoin?
00:00:00.000Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is Thursday, July the 24th, and welcome to Hannaford.
00:00:22.480It's a quick one this evening. I'm quite concerned to read that a prominent civil rights lawyer, Ewa Chipiak, has had her bank account frozen.
00:00:35.600Or, in fact, as we described it in our story this morning, she has been unbanked. She has been given notice to find a new bank.
00:00:44.080Now, it's not unheard of for banks to fire clients. However, when somebody like high-profile lawyer Ewa Chipiak gets unbanked, it should catch your attention as it caught mine.
00:00:59.000The details are somewhat opaque and protected by client confidentiality.
00:01:04.380However, according to the correspondence from the Royal Bank of Canada that Ms. Chipiak released, the situation was triggered by a Bitcoin transaction.
00:01:17.100And if transactions appear suspicious, yes, banks are actually required by law to take action.
00:01:24.720On the other hand, lots of people buy and sell Bitcoin, so do they all get investigated?
00:01:34.540And was it nothing to do with Ms. Chipiak's public support for the Freedom Convoy and her well-attested counter-establishment political views?
00:02:17.820Two years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic, though, the private bank, Kutz, an ancient and estimable institution in banking in Great Britain, dumped Nigel Farage, the controversial leader of Great Britain's UK Independence Party.
00:02:35.740Farage was a prominent, ferocious even, critic of the British government and of the World Economic Forum.
00:02:41.900Eventually, Kutz found a loophole in their agreement and showed Farage the door.
00:02:52.940But then when you're talking about a controversial politician getting unbanked and an Edmonton lawyer who takes an interest in people who governments don't like and speaks up for them,
00:03:05.540when people like that are shown the door by her bank, there is a consistent look and feel.
00:03:10.580So, are Chipyuck's banking troubles just about Bitcoin?
00:03:14.620Do all lawyers who buy Bitcoin face scrutiny?
00:03:18.920Or is a commercial bank in Canada, one that cooperated with the government of Canada in freezing bank accounts of convoy protesters and the people who donated to the convoy cause, wanting to send a message?
00:03:34.560It seems they are operating within their rights.
00:03:40.040So, let's leave that as a rhetorical question.
00:03:45.020But in 2022, they weren't on the side of feisty people picking bones with their government.
00:03:57.160I had a look today at her ex-posting as she reviewed the events of the week.
00:04:02.840Looking at this Leach-Barber sentencing hearing, she said on her ex-posting that the lengthy sentences demanded by the prosecution, seven years and eight years, were cruel and unusual punishment for a charge of mischief.
00:04:23.420Leach and Barber were associated with a non-violent protest rooted in charter-protected rights.
00:04:30.100Neither of them had a criminal record.
00:04:33.700So, she, if a Chipyuck that is, rightly asks, how did a protest resulting in minor criminal charges turn into the threat of nearly a decade in prison?
00:04:46.140A lot of people are asking the same thing.
00:04:57.280In her post on X today, Chipyuck also commented that the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has now been exposed for what it really is, a bureaucratic nightmare, and frankly, a fraud on the people it was supposed to help.
00:05:13.600Years later, she writes, most injured Canadians still haven't seen a cent.
00:05:21.340And once again, she adds, that the RBC froze her bank accounts, citing vague risk concerns.
00:05:31.260They did it once before, in 2022, she said.