Western Standard - February 23, 2022


WATCH: Citizen journalist covering Freedom Convoy has accounts frozen


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

166.44704

Word count

6,147

Sentence count

37

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Andy Lee is a citizen journalist who was on the ground in Ottawa covering the Freedom Convoy and has now found her bank accounts have been frozen as a result. She joins us to talk about her experience with the Freedom convoy and what she has found so far.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Melanie Rizdin with the Western Standard. Thanks for joining us this
00:00:12.320 evening and tonight we're going to be talking with Andy Lee who is a citizen journalist and
00:00:18.120 Andy was sort of boots on the ground in Ottawa during the freedom convoy that was basically
00:00:26.680 dismantled over the weekend. And Andy has come home from Ottawa and has found her bank accounts
00:00:35.860 have actually been frozen. Now we'll get into that. Andy, thanks for joining us. I just want
00:00:41.720 to talk a little bit about what you do and why you were in Ottawa. So I joined the convoy when
00:00:50.260 it initially rolled into Ottawa and that was before sort of anybody was covering it. It was
00:00:56.000 still fringe movement of a dozen truckers so I thought that I would join up at the rally points
00:01:01.520 and sort of you know see for myself what was going on and I you know I saw the opposite of what was
00:01:06.640 being displayed in MSM it wasn't a small movement it was a large movement you know it was very
00:01:12.500 powerful movement it was gaining traction so I sort of ended up following them out to medicine
00:01:18.320 hat and then I came home and I flew back out to Ottawa and you know I sort of met up with the
00:01:25.100 main convoy as it rolled into Kingston about a month ago so it was there for that you know I
00:01:31.440 spent some time with the convoy I came home and then I sort of went back out because I had heard
00:01:36.340 that there was a large crackdown coming which obviously happened so I flew out the past weekend
00:01:42.780 in Ottawa to sort of document that that crackdown and try to try to fairly look at what sort of
00:01:49.780 happened there so yeah so i've just got home my bank account was for whatever reason frozen we
00:01:56.900 don't know if that's related to sort of maybe my perceived involvement in the freedom convoy but
00:02:04.420 there's certainly uh some of that going around so yeah there definitely is we've got a few stories
00:02:11.060 that uh we've been actually covering uh our reporter um we have a reporter amber up in
00:02:17.460 Edmonton who just covered a story about a Saskatchewan farmer who donated $500 to the
00:02:24.180 convoy and has since had his bank accounts frozen. I also found, yeah sorry go ahead.
00:02:33.300 Oh yeah no no it's so I also donated to the convoy that was before they sort of transitioned
00:02:40.820 over to the uh the give send go i don't know related to the initial sort of movements so
00:02:49.380 yeah we've got uh i've got some some uh tweets actually from some conservative mps speaking
00:02:55.940 about uh people constituents in in their area that are also uh dealing with frozen bank accounts uh
00:03:03.940 looks like Marilyn Gladue, Conservative MP for Serena Lambton, she tweeted that a lady in her
00:03:12.580 constituency donated or actually bought a Freedom Convoy t-shirt for $20 and now her bank account
00:03:22.420 is frozen. Also another tweet from Mark Strahl, MP out of Chilliwack, Hope, BC, tweeted about a
00:03:30.260 a single mom in Chilliwack, Brianne, who donated $50 to the convoy like you when this was not
00:03:37.220 deemed an illegal act. And she too has had her bank accounts frozen. We're hearing more and more
00:03:43.540 of these stories. So first of all, Andy, tell me a little bit about your citizen journalism. How
00:03:49.980 long have you been doing that type of coverage? So only for just over a year. So, you know, I just
00:03:59.540 sort of started uh during the lockdowns i started sort of reporting this isn't usually what i do i
00:04:06.140 don't usually cover really domestic affairs i do more international affairs i look at corporate
00:04:11.240 foreign interference uh you know in our in our government and sort of you know maybe foreign
00:04:16.860 influence in our government so that's sort of where i specialize um i did trigger one investigation
00:04:22.160 in the house of commons already that was on the chinese takeover of a canadian lithium mine asset
00:04:28.640 uh francois philippe champaign it has been questioned in the house of commons as to why
00:04:34.400 that asset was sold off in direct contravention to a uh you know agreement that we signed with
00:04:43.440 the united states government that was the joint agreement of critical minerals it was an agreement
00:04:49.120 that we were to stockpile critical minerals uh and so for whatever reason we are allowing sort
00:04:54.800 of mining assets to be sold off to Chinese state entities and we're contravening our part of the
00:05:01.360 bargain there so you know that's sort of what I usually do so this was outside of my you know my
00:05:08.240 sort of comfort zone but again I wanted to just I wanted to cover it because I felt that it had the
00:05:13.600 power to you know become a very strong movement and that there was a lot of backing and that again
00:05:21.120 it was very much dismissed by mainstream media and i think that that's part of the problem is
00:05:27.280 that because it was dismissed nobody was really prepared for what happened when you know a couple
00:05:33.120 of thousand trucks rolled into ottawa with 10 000 people behind them that wasn't what was being
00:05:38.560 reported it was being reported it was a fringe minority it was a couple of trucks uh you know
00:05:44.720 these were unacceptable people with unacceptable views and then obviously it ended up blowing up
00:05:50.960 into something that you know our government enacted uh invoked an act that's never before
00:05:57.280 been invoked that's actually meant for for wartime measures to quell this protest so you know it it
00:06:05.040 it sort of defied everything that our government and a lot of legacy media said that it was going
00:06:10.240 to be right against all odds and so we we saw this awful crackdown come down using this this
00:06:18.880 emergency measures acts which sort of gives our government uh you know extraordinary powers and
00:06:24.320 extrajudicial powers and so now we're seeing sort of those maybe extrajudicial powers being used
00:06:32.240 in the form of seizing bank accounts and whether my account was seized by the government i can't
00:06:36.160 say right now i haven't been into my bank yet i just got home but we do know that some people's
00:06:41.360 banking accounts are being seized uh and it's a bit of a bizarre situation because christian
00:06:48.160 freeland went on camera and she said that she very clearly said that uh the rcmp was giving
00:06:58.240 banks names for uh to freeze accounts to freeze bank accounts to stop this protest
00:07:06.320 but then the rcmp also issued a statement yesterday directly contravening that saying
00:07:12.000 that they had not done that and now there's news coming out that they're working with bank accounts
00:07:17.360 to unfreeze bank accounts so it's very very bizarre because you've got you know the deputy
00:07:24.160 prime minister of canada saying that the rcmp is giving bank accounts names of of you know
00:07:31.920 individuals or you know corporate donors or political donors to freeze their bank accounts
00:07:37.520 and stop the influx of funds to this movement and then you've got the rcmp saying something
00:07:42.640 completely different and issuing a statement that's uh you know contradicting the deputy
00:07:47.360 prime minister of canada and now we've got you know people coming out saying that yes bank
00:07:52.880 accounts are being unfrozen so it's like why were these accounts frozen in the like in the first
00:07:58.800 place regardless if it was mine or if it was somebody else why were they frozen in the first
00:08:03.200 place what authority did they act upon if it wasn't from the rcmp and where did they get this
00:08:09.760 information from is this from an illegally hacked donor list right was this from the give send go
00:08:16.800 hacked list and did the government give the banks authority to sort of freeze these accounts that
00:08:24.160 now are apparently being unfrozen i mean and even even even the concept of the hacking even the
00:08:32.240 concept of the hacking of those accounts would typically be looked at as a an illegal act well
00:08:41.200 exactly i mean that's interesting as well and nobody actually you know donated most of these
00:08:47.600 people donated to the convoy when it was 100 legal to do so these people didn't do anything illegal
00:08:54.560 by donating yeah yeah it sounds like the uh the the circumstances around the the cases that i was
00:09:02.000 talking about um were such that uh this this happened before the emergencies act was brought
00:09:08.400 forward uh and and therefore you know donating fifty dollars to a freedom convoy that you
00:09:15.840 support or you believe in um from sort of your side of the fence uh wasn't at the time
00:09:23.120 constituted as something illegal so so you're correct in in the sense that there is some
00:09:30.480 extraordinary powers being um given to the government right now uh and you know some
00:09:37.360 would argue an extraordinary overreach um but you know andy let's i wanted to talk to you a little
00:09:44.320 bit about sort of how involved you were with the convoy um and co and the coverage of it tell me a
00:09:53.200 little bit about the coverage of it i know that you were saying that your your twitter was recently
00:10:00.000 shut down let's talk about what kind of led up to that what were you what were you uh putting out
00:10:06.080 on twitter at the time sure sure well like i said my my initial contact with the convoy was uh you
00:10:13.120 know i go on the cb radio when i was in edmonton i sort of followed them up to calgary and i went to
00:10:19.120 the rally point because i wanted to see how big this was i wanted to see if it's a dozen trucks
00:10:23.120 or 100 trucks um and so i joined up with him there uh you know and i sort of started documenting
00:10:30.720 what was going on and you know um you know not i mean i i did support what they were doing because
00:10:40.080 they they got some things done that that i wanted i want freedom right i want my kids
00:10:45.360 to go to school without masks on i'm vaccinated i supported our vaccination movement wholeheartedly
00:10:51.680 the entire way but does that mean that you know i i want to be constantly signing up for more
00:10:58.640 inoculations and updating a vaccine passport so that i have freedom of movement no that's not what
00:11:04.880 i signed up for right i made a personal medical decision um so there's a lot of ways that i got
00:11:11.440 behind it so i did support but i also tried to be objective like i was monitoring for uh how's the
00:11:17.760 convoy traveling is it safe are they blocking emergency vehicles are they you know obstructing
00:11:24.560 traffic um are they doing anything illegal as they sort of make their way to ottawa
00:11:30.560 so i was really happy with the you know the first leg and and how actually the the convoy traveled
00:11:36.560 to ottawa for what it was it was a huge movement with big rigs uh you know that i mean one one
00:11:43.920 you know semi has the ability to block off a street so you know they weren't doing that
00:11:50.400 until they hit ottawa they were very much just going from point a to point b
00:11:55.440 and and trying to sort of you know participate in this protest and so i was happy to to go along
00:12:01.600 with them so yeah and then my twitter account got shut down it got shut down on february 12th
00:12:08.560 so the last thing that sort of somebody sent me was that um there was a convoy headed towards the
00:12:16.640 british columbia border and so they sent me a picture of a truck that was heading there it was
00:12:21.520 a truck sort of that was painted in a military style uh you know outfit and had a canadian flag
00:12:27.360 draped across the front of it and somebody said you know this this bc convoy is heading to shut
00:12:32.800 down the border so i tweeted that out i said you know the bc border is about to be shut down
00:12:38.320 um and i i'm not advocating for the bc border to be shut down i'm just pointing out that the bc
00:12:43.600 border is going to be shut down and that was what happened um and so that locked my count
00:12:51.280 and my account was suspended after that um you know just simply for pointing out that this was
00:12:58.000 going on as far as i could tell it was interesting because that truck ended up being involved it did
00:13:04.560 end up breaching police barricades that went over top of them so i don't know if i was sort of you
00:13:11.840 know maybe taken as advocating for this sort of behavior i was always very cooperative to police
00:13:20.720 whenever i interacted with them and i tried to interact with them frequently on a on a good
00:13:25.440 basis um you know and and tried to be sort of a liaison where there there wasn't a liaison because
00:13:32.480 you know nobody was talking to the convoy organizers and nobody was getting any mediators
00:13:38.880 and our mainstream legacy media of course chose to dismiss villainize dehumanize the people who
00:13:47.600 were involved in this protest so you know instead of sort of being that bridge that they should have
00:13:54.320 been uh that's not the route that they chose right they chose to mock these people and and not listen
00:13:59.680 to them uh and the media's job is to be a voice of the people but that's not that's not what we saw
00:14:07.360 here we saw that the media it was a voice of the government yeah i um coming from uh mainstream
00:14:14.800 media i can relate to that for sure uh one thing i was going to mention too you had said your twitter
00:14:21.440 following had had grown quite substantially over the last year i think you had mentioned you were
00:14:26.000 up to about 30 000 followers when your twitter account got shut down yes and your and your
00:14:32.480 handle was uh hannah bananas and uh looks like uh even jordan peterson jumped to your defense uh
00:14:40.560 when it looked like uh what you were tweeting out was was being suppressed and and censored
00:14:48.160 looks like uh yes did you see that did you see him i did your defense a bit there yes so uh yeah
00:14:57.160 so some people made some some videos in my defense uh and uh yeah a lot of the accounts
00:15:03.240 jordan peterson was one of them uh lori goldstein as well uh you know from sun also said you know
00:15:10.620 why was she suspended and of course we haven't heard anything from twitter yet um it's sort of
00:15:17.080 funny i put up uh something earlier saying you know twitter's twitter safety and they say that
00:15:23.260 the you know our platform depends on transparency and i was like well you know i've been i've been
00:15:30.360 asking you for over 10 days now i email you every day as to why you took my countdown
00:15:35.740 and uh you can't sort of answer me or you won't answer me uh so you know it's looking that it's
00:15:44.420 very much their intention not to you know answer me at all and I have a very ridiculous handle
00:15:51.800 I started out anonymously because I used to actually do some sort of work
00:15:58.660 tracking Antifa and extremist groups and things like that and I had some threats sort of put
00:16:05.980 against me you know there was a YouTube channel that was sort of created dedicated to tracking
00:16:13.640 me down they did track me down and you know they put up all my personal information they put up
00:16:19.000 information on my my family they put up information on my children and so um you know i sort of
00:16:28.200 outed myself and said okay this is my real name my handle stuck even though it's ridiculous
00:16:35.880 it's a funny handle but i never changed it now you had speaking about uh about um
00:16:43.080 you know sort of strange activity not only did you mention that when you got home you discovered
00:16:48.520 your bank account was frozen and i believe you said the bank had had mentioned to you something
00:16:54.840 about some fraudulent activity but you still don't have answers but you also mentioned that
00:16:59.960 you're getting messages from hackers or what's what's the circumstances there yeah so because my
00:17:09.560 my twitter accounts and yeah because a lot of people uh liked my twitter account and you know
00:17:15.640 i'm not really worried about the following but i had a lot of research on there and i was really
00:17:20.280 fluid when i researched like i would put up a tweet and i would think about it and i would
00:17:23.960 research it and then i would end up getting these massive threads and they would end up being my
00:17:28.120 research and so some of my threads were like 50 almost 60 threads long by the time i got to the
00:17:33.720 end of it um so you know a lot of people have a vested interest in seeing that account activated
00:17:41.320 or uh not reactivated so i've sort of had hackers on on both sides uh contact me saying you know
00:17:50.360 if you give me x amount of dollars and it's not like a hundred dollars it's thousands of dollars
00:17:55.080 I can reactivate your account. Or if you don't sort of pay me, I'll deactivate your account
00:18:05.840 permanently. So if Twitter ever hears your appeal, they'll go to open your account and there'll be
00:18:11.400 nothing left. So there's a really interesting underbelly going on there in the cyber world
00:18:19.780 that i didn't really know existed um so you know i've got these two sides one side saying i want
00:18:26.260 to open your account another side saying we want to close down your account permanently
00:18:30.980 um you know if you don't pay us and so obviously i don't have any funds because my funds are frozen
00:18:35.780 so i wouldn't tell you anyways but i'm like even if i wanted to you have to understand
00:18:41.220 my son right have you heard anything else from the bank on that i mean i know you had said
00:18:46.660 they had made a comment about fraudulent activity any other information at this point yeah so all
00:18:52.500 i've got is is you know if i call them i just get a message saying you know your uh your account's
00:18:58.420 been deactivated for fraudulent activity and so i have to go into my bank so i don't know why i
00:19:04.740 don't know if it's government related i don't know if it's related to you know maybe these hacking
00:19:10.180 attempts that are being made it could be either i think regardless again it doesn't really matter
00:19:18.100 there's you know there's a lot of really strange things going on right now and like i said i think
00:19:22.020 that the big thing right now is is that for whatever reason uh you know there's a backtrack
00:19:29.140 happening uh and and it looks like accounts that were frozen for whatever reason and maybe
00:19:36.260 mine's among them and maybe maybe it's not uh are being unfrozen all of a sudden and you know that
00:19:44.580 sort of contravening what our government has said will happen and what the ottawa police chief said
00:19:51.060 would happen as well i interviewed him i was there at this media scrum i asked the question you know
00:19:58.500 i said uh if protesters leave and go home at this point uh because that's what you're asking them
00:20:04.980 to do you want them to go home so i just said if these people go home at this point are you going
00:20:09.060 to be sort of retroactively pursuing them and pressing charges and what's your plan and he was
00:20:15.540 very clear that he intended to apply financial sanctions against any protesters who had left the
00:20:23.860 protests retroactively and that's pretty dangerous territory to to fall into for any democracy
00:20:30.900 because these people did what you asked they went home right you asked them to clear the streets
00:20:37.620 they left the streets but you're saying that you're still going to sort of relentlessly pursue
00:20:42.500 these people you could financially sanction them you know extra judicially under this emergency act
00:20:50.480 that's been enacted so i mean and the government says well it's going to be 30 days maybe or it
00:20:57.400 could be longer or it could be less well I mean you know we hear this all the time you know we've
00:21:04.120 heard this and it's sort of the ever moving goalposts is why people are mobilizing people
00:21:11.040 don't want to hear maybe or in the future or if you do this we'll do that what people want are
00:21:17.140 is sort of a firm plans to you know for our government to lay out saying this is how we're
00:21:23.820 going to move forward well and even even to have yeah to have things set where once this is done
00:21:31.700 you know once this is achieved we will reach this and I you know even when we're speaking about
00:21:37.820 you know more than two years of a pandemic that kept shifting and moving and the goals
00:21:44.140 posts kept changing and the you know there never really was an end to there was you know
00:21:51.400 once you're vaccinated this will be this will be the circumstances and we never really hit those
00:21:58.200 circumstances so I yeah I can understand people's frustration now Andy you were in Ottawa over the
00:22:05.440 weekend correct when did you when did you get back so I just got back late last night so yeah
00:22:11.460 so I arrived in Thursday I went because uh you know I was suspecting with the enactment of the
00:22:16.680 Emergency Act, there would be a big crackdown. Tell us a bit about what you saw while you were
00:22:21.780 there through the crackdown that started heavily Friday. But, you know, there were a few of the
00:22:29.480 organizers that were taken into custody Thursday evening. Tell us a bit about what you saw while
00:22:34.460 you were there. Yeah, well, it was, you know, it really sort of progressed. So Friday, I went out.
00:22:43.400 um you know i i talked to the officers a bit um you know i went right down that sort of there's
00:22:50.340 a line i've got a video up so there was a a line of police and a line of protesters
00:22:55.380 you know and the police weren't weren't armed at that point they were very relaxed and i actually
00:23:01.540 walked down the middle of that line and you know just showed sort of what this standoff looked like
00:23:08.180 um you know and so that was day one and so it was a little more relaxed but
00:23:13.760 you know the next day it was sort of baton throughout yeah you had mentioned you you
00:23:20.020 were pepper sprayed at what point yeah and so i was pepper sprayed so there's that you know
00:23:26.960 there was sort of uh people put up a viral video and that was when the the mounted police sort of
00:23:33.260 took their horses through the crowd and you know some people were trampled and some people were
00:23:39.260 injured so i was recording that at the time and then yeah i was unfortunately pepper sprayed and
00:23:46.700 i had to sort of pull away but we do know that that was sort of you know a shameful moment
00:23:54.860 uh you know there's the rcmp chat that came out uh where people say that you know some of the
00:24:01.180 rcmp unfortunately have said that that was that was awesome right they said that that was really
00:24:07.180 awesome what you did with the horses um oh watching and they needed to i believe i saw uh something
00:24:14.380 in there they needed to um master that maneuver or yeah along those lines uh yeah i think i think
00:24:22.140 some disturbing some disturbing uh communication between officers in that leaked conversation for
00:24:30.140 sure we do have that on our website as well yeah yeah and so uh you know having having witnessed
00:24:36.940 that i i can say it was it was not awesome uh it caused a speed it caused panic i think that that
00:24:44.380 was the real turning point between the crowd and the people because that was one of you know there
00:24:51.020 was some footage of arrests where there was you know some kneeing and maybe some excessive police
00:24:56.780 force used police brutality perhaps and some people taken away at gunpoint so i think that
00:25:04.060 that was really the the turning point where the crowd turned against the police because you know
00:25:09.740 they had sort of lashed out and you know not just use normal advancement techniques where you sort
00:25:17.420 of put pressure on and that's a very standard technique is you know you form a line and you
00:25:23.580 slowly put pressure on the crowd and get them to move back um but this was using you know
00:25:30.620 i mean what's a horse i mean a horse is like using a weapon right this is
00:25:37.500 you know this is uh you know a very very powerful uh you know creature that that can do a lot of
00:25:45.260 damage and did do a lot of damage and hurt people and you know and it's created a lot of division
00:25:51.660 as well even with the responses because i've seen responses that have said um you know the rcmp needs
00:25:57.500 to be investigated for this this is this is a tragedy this is you know um a massive overreach
00:26:04.780 of power but then you've got the other people who say uh sort of tweet their responses like
00:26:10.940 they shouldn't have been there they should have left when they were told to
00:26:13.900 uh you know so it's it again just keeps creating and and contributing to that uh real divide in
00:26:22.300 in our communities and and with people uh supporting the the convoy and what the convoy
00:26:28.140 was was aiming to achieve you know um i've i've heard a lot of people reference it as
00:26:35.740 you know an anti-vax protest when when i you know i've heard from many who who were
00:26:42.300 affiliated or or participating and they are fully vaxxed they're not anti-vax at all they're they're
00:26:49.200 more pro-freedom so um so it's kind of yeah it's it's created a very strange perception i think
00:26:57.140 you're right a lot of people struggle to see the truth uh and to to hear the truth when it comes to
00:27:04.120 what is being heavily reported. And so, you know, independent journalists such as yourselves
00:27:12.200 and media that work free of the, you know, government funding, I think is, it's imperative
00:27:19.920 right now because, you know, it's an accountability piece that I think is, has been lacking in the
00:27:28.780 legacy media arena for for quite some time yeah i mean it was really sad to sort of um
00:27:39.340 to be witnessing one thing and to see you know our mainstream media reporting a completely
00:27:45.020 different thing like you know they had a lot of suspicion over one tent and this was sort
00:27:50.860 of the operations tent and it was supposed to be stockpiling cans of gas and things like that
00:27:56.460 well i mean i just walked up to the tent and walked in and there was no jerry cans it was a dj
00:28:04.380 right and so there was a lot of suspicion and there was photographs of police sort of helping
00:28:09.260 them set up this tent this operations tent well i mean this was just sort of the main stage where
00:28:15.740 speakers would come up and where they would play music at night uh you know so it was sort of
00:28:23.100 it was bizarre to see live sort of this you know this narrative that's pushed out basically these
00:28:31.720 are direct PMO talking points and to witness something completely different on the ground
00:28:37.720 and I mean were there were the mischievous characters was there bad characters was there
00:28:42.620 rowdy activity yeah absolutely it was a massive street party right there were firecrackers going
00:28:48.480 off in the streets there were people drinking you know absolutely all that happened but i mean did
00:28:54.320 i witness anything that was legitimately violent until police moved in no like i really didn't see
00:29:01.920 anything that that was i would say you know that made me feel unsafe until those last days and yeah
00:29:09.920 i was in the crowd you know i got pepper sprayed for videotaping i had you know sort of a you know
00:29:15.520 a police officer wearing a gas mask uh waving a baton on my face and i was within the red zone
00:29:23.360 as well i was staying within the red zone so that's the zone that was all chained off right
00:29:28.320 and uh you know the last day i didn't even come out of my hotel room because
00:29:32.880 people were reporting that if you go out you know you don't like to take pictures and things
00:29:37.360 so the last time i went out was um sunday during the day i went out i didn't go to
00:29:44.400 out at all monday until i left my hotel and i asked to leave sort of the red zone
00:29:49.680 but i mean that night when i went into my hotel like i was escorted out of that red zone by you
00:29:54.640 know two police with with guns i was told i couldn't take any any pictures of what was going
00:30:01.680 on in in that secured perimeter um so i mean that's pretty wild i mean i've got credentials
00:30:09.520 right like i've got a free press pass i'm just like can you point me to the nearest exit right
00:30:14.880 and they're like no no we have to escort you out of this you're in a secure area right so and i
00:30:21.040 mean is this what's what's sort of in the future of canada what point are we going to open up
00:30:25.040 parliament hill right and is this going to be used against future protests i mean we have a protest
00:30:30.560 building we've got you know freedom march we've got the soldier who's marching across canada right
00:30:36.080 now yes we do we're uh we're going to be covering that for sure yeah and i think he's going to get
00:30:42.320 a lot of support behind him and i think that he's going to end up getting a network and probably
00:30:47.760 people are going to end up crowdfunding his movement and a lot of people who got behind
00:30:53.200 the the trucker convoy are probably going to get behind this soldier who's decided to
00:30:57.840 march across canada for freedom so it's like you know is this emergency act going to be used
00:31:03.920 against this individual as well right yeah i mean we've we definitely have uh we definitely have
00:31:14.320 some coverage in store for sure uh you know of of how things are going to to roll out with this
00:31:21.120 emergent these emergencies act uh that's going to be affecting each and every one of us uh in
00:31:26.880 this country until it's lifted uh Andy what's next for you then are you are you going to continue
00:31:34.720 with your support of these movements what's next for for you yeah well I mean they can't really do
00:31:42.800 anything else right I mean I've been deplatformed um you know maybe my bank keys have been seized
00:31:50.640 in you know in sort of retribution so I mean at this point you know unless they're going to come
00:31:58.380 and arrest me as they say that they're going to retroactively do for supporters and that's a very
00:32:04.080 broad sort of statement to put out you know there's no definition as to what involvement
00:32:09.520 or participants are at this point so you know do I fall under that I don't know right am I
00:32:17.320 to get a call or a knock on my door potentially but i mean i'm going to keep on doing what what
00:32:22.440 i'm doing you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna stop or i'm not gonna be sort of cower in the
00:32:27.240 face of this regardless and i do intend to go and meet up with the soldier and uh and talk to him
00:32:35.160 as he makes his way to ottawa and uh you know get his story and maybe that's going to be the
00:32:41.160 the next movement right and is the government going to try to shut it down well we'll see right
00:32:47.080 they where do you put your where do you put your coverage andy where where do you where are your
00:32:51.240 stories where can people find you because twitter shut me down i opened a getter account so all my
00:32:57.320 stuff is on my getter right now i'm at the andy lee my name is the real andy lee because there's
00:33:03.320 some fake accounts that have popped up under my name and so we're about to get this shut down
00:33:08.520 and i just have a website it's called andyleevna.com uh you know i've got uh some stories on sort of
00:33:16.280 corporate and foreign malfeasance within our government uh you know some sort of chinese
00:33:21.800 communist party influence in our government is is what i specialize in uh you know i'm married 0.59
00:33:27.800 a hong konger my children are chinese so i have uh um you know i've got a lot invested uh you know
00:33:36.600 in you know hoping to see a free china uh you know and and uh you know free hong kong and
00:33:43.080 free time on and things like that so you know that sort of topic is is is really personally
00:33:48.760 close to my heart uh because of course what i've reported means that um i can probably
00:33:54.520 no longer safely visit hong kong or or china um as i used to um because of you know what what i sort
00:34:01.960 of uncovered so that's really sad that i can never take my children to see you know sort of
00:34:08.440 where they came from it's but that's that's the state so um so yeah so that's where you
00:34:15.000 guys can find me and i'm going to keep on writing and i'll keep on reporting we'll see what twitter
00:34:20.600 has to say there's still an appeal in the works and maybe they'll do the right thing and unleash
00:34:26.360 my account right yeah well i guess we will see uh maybe keep me posted let me know and let me know
00:34:32.600 if you when you get a little bit more information into what's happened with your accounts and
00:34:38.200 why they've been frozen maybe we'll touch base with you again here soon Andy and thanks very
00:34:43.560 much for joining me and and us and filling us in on you know some of those last days in Ottawa
00:34:50.200 and just sort of speaking to to your experience as a citizen journalist covering this and perhaps
00:34:57.160 the ramifications that you're facing for doing so but you know let's hope that's not going to
00:35:02.520 be the case and uh at least not for not very long lived yeah well i mean like i said i think we're
00:35:10.440 seeing them backtrack right they're very quickly saying that they're unfreezing accounts so it
00:35:16.200 didn't take them very long to to roll back those measures so uh you know the popular opinion is
00:35:22.600 that i'm going to go into my bank and show my id and my account will miraculously be unlocked
00:35:28.840 without explanation so we'll we'll see we'll see i'm gonna try to get in there i've got like about
00:35:34.840 an hour to get in there before it closes so thanks all right thanks for joining us that's
00:35:41.720 andy lee uh she's a citizen journalist and uh we were just checking in on her her experience
00:35:47.560 in ottawa covering the the the convoy the protests that were happening there over this last weekend
00:35:53.960 and thanks for joining us.
00:35:56.980 We will obviously have more coming
00:35:59.280 with how the Emergencies Act is going to unfold in Canada
00:36:03.840 and just keep it here.
00:36:05.540 We'll have all the news for you.
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