Elderly Parents' Bank Accounts Frozen

At least twice a day, they'd call and ask, 'When are we getting our money back? What about my pension? How am I going to pay for this?'

Part 1: We Felt Free

Rich and Dan during their first week in Ottawa. Photo supplied by them.

The day before he drove to Ottawa, Rich had gathered with others on a highway overpass to cheer on the Convoy. Hundreds of people had shown up, and "the excitement level was just amazing," he recalls. "Total strangers. Just hugging and sharing stories and crying and laughing."

After hearing about the protest, "I said, 'I have to go. I can't be anywhere else.' So I called Dan, my good buddy. Him and his wife were in the same boat. They both lost their jobs, but he absolutely refuses to get the jab. I said, 'Wanna go on a road trip?'"

During their time in Ottawa, "the love was overwhelming. It was the greatest experience in my life. I don't think you could have gone through that and not be a different person." Men standing on the street near a truck, talking to a driver, would open their wallets and fish out bills. Many, many sealed envelopes got handed through windows.

Rich describes the financial support as unbelievable. It paid for his fuel, he says, and was in turn passed along to the folks doing the cooking in the tents that had been erected on his block. "The amount of cash that came through my driver’s side door window was, at times it was a thousand dollars a day. And the reason why they were bringing the cash is because the whole GoFundMe and the other one [GiveSendGo] got shut down."

An older woman who'd been stopping by with Hungarian pastries every few days quietly told him, "I remember a Communist country, so I’m going to give you this, as well. Make sure you don’t throw out these napkins." There were three, he remembers, "each one of them had a fifty-dollar-bill. It was very discreet, just through the window, looking around. That’s what she was feeling, that she had to do that."

The “passing of the napkins,” as he terms it, provided clarity. It was at that moment, he says, he knew he had to stay and “fight for every Canadian's freedom.”

Toward the end of the third week, Rich had been in Ottawa far longer than anyone had imagined the protest would drag on. "I think I could have used up a couple more sick days," he says, "but I was scrounging by that point. My biggest reason was [my wife] Kerri. I don't know how many times she called me just in tears, upset at the outright lies in the mainstream media. She was worried about me getting arrested, getting hurt."

When he and Dan departed Ottawa in the van on Thursday, February 17th, their plan was to reassure their families, check in with Rich's boss, and then return for the weekend. From an emotional perspective, "leaving was extremely difficult," he remembers. "That was one of the hardest things I've ever done."

The next day, the police crackdown began and Rich’s bank accounts were frozen. In his words,

the day after I got back from Ottawa, I had to e-transfer a friend for a lottery pool at work and e-transfer wasn’t working. What’s going on, here? I go back into the [mobile phone] app, into the accounts. I’m looking at zeros and dashes on the accounts.

Ah, God, really? So then I decided to check my joint accounts with my parents, which I have sort of a power of attorney thing, and all of those accounts were frozen.

When he alerted Kerri, her response was "How can they do that? How can they do that?" To which he replied, "Well, we’ve seen how they can do what they want over the last couple of years." It was definitely a shock, he says. "We were just horrified at what the government is capable of."

The banks didn’t notify Rich before taking these historically unprecedented actions. Nor did they let him know later, when they reversed course,

I spent hours, probably two hours with the one bank. They gave me no answers. They didn’t give me any direction - what I should do, how long is this gonna last? The other one, I couldn’t even speak to anybody.

It was stressful for the first few days. Because we didn’t have any cash on hand, we’ve got bills due.

How long are the accounts going to be frozen for? You know, are they gonna be frozen indefinitely? Is there going to be some sort of trial?

Kerri's sister called to say “Look, we can set up an account for you guys to get you through.” Many of their friends were quick to help. "A thousand dollars here, five hundred from this one, you know. We didn't even have to ask."

His parents, who are "seniors in their late seventies and early eighties" were bewildered by these events. Both of them, he says, "were just stressed beyond belief." At least twice a day, they'd call and ask, "'When are we getting our money back? What about my pension? How am I going to pay for this?'"

When Rich described the situation to his sister, he says "she called up my dad and said, 'Listen, unless you're on fire, just leave Rich alone. He's got a lot on his plate right now. He's gonna figure it out, everything's gonna be OK.'"  

It was a tough time even for their golden retriever. "Our poor dog. She picked up on the stress and hid under the kitchen table for a day. After four or five days, finally we got our accounts unfrozen. I just checked the one day and the accounts were back online."

More than two years afterward, Rich says his father - an immigrant who arrived in Canada from Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia in 1968 - hasn't fully recovered. "He's still paranoid about his pension and Old Age Security. He brings it up maybe once a month. This is how old people are. They worry about these things."

final installment: Unforgiveable Things