It’s a rare event when any kind of government program manages to come in under budget, but that’s what happened with the business subsidy offered by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario to businesses harmed by the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa in February.
A fund of $20 million was earmarked for small businesses, yet only $12.9 million of the money was dispersed. This indicates that, like many other accusations made against the convoy protesters, the damage done to local businesses over the course of the protests was greatly exaggerated.
There’s no doubt that many people chose not to go to the businesses within the protest site. Access to the city core was limited, and many citizens surely chose to do their shopping and dining outside of the protest zone. It’s hard to blame them if they had been watching legacy media coverage of the event or listening to local politicians. They would have been convinced Ottawa had been taken over by raging, armed white nationalists who were setting apartment buildings on fire and assaulting women….