Anger over BLM’s purchase of $8.1 million mansion grows as group’s finances scrutinized

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Anger over BLM’s purchase of $8.1 million Toronto mansion grows as group’s finances scrutinized

Anger over BLM’s purchase of $8.1 million Toronto mansion grows as group’s finances scrutinized

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By:  Andrew Kerr, Washington Examiner,January 28, 2022:

Canadian Black Lives Matter activists are furious over the group’s recent $8.1 million cash purchase of a mansion in downtown Toronto that once served as the headquarters of the Communist Party of Canada .

The U.S. charity that serves as the face of the BLM movement provided the bulk of the funding for the purchase of the 10,000-square-foot property in July. The purchase flew largely under the radar at the time, but anger has now reached a boiling point amid other revelations about BLM’s management and its finances.

“For BLM Canada to take money from BLM Global Network [Foundation] for a building without consulting the community was unethical,” Canadian BLM activists Sarah Jama and Sahra Soudi said in a recent statement. “For BLM Canada to refuse to answer questions from young Black organizers goes against the spirit of movement-building.”

BLM’S MILLIONS UNACCOUNTED FOR AFTER LEADERS QUIETLY JUMPED SHIP

Jama and Soudi said they resigned from the steering committee of BLM’s Toronto chapter after the leaders of BLM Canada refused to answer any questions about the purchase and tried to get them to sign exploitative nondisclosure agreements.

“In other words, the NDA was designed as a constant threat of legal action against us, even though we were volunteering our time to a cause we believed in,” the activists said.

BLM Canada said the Toronto property, which they dubbed the Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, would serve as a “vessel that seeks to nurture Black radical creation in Toronto and beyond.”

“Wildseed is a transformed industrial space; a blank canvas reimagined as a multipurpose artist-run community incubator, gallery, studio and home to Black lives Matter — Canada,” Wildseed’s website reads. “Wildseed is a transfeminist, queer affirming space politically aligned with supporting Black liberation work across Canada.”

Real estate records obtained by the Washington Examiner show that BLM Canada, which also goes by M4BJ, purchased the property for $8.1 million on July 13, 2021. The purchase came just weeks after the group’s co-founder, Patrisse Cullors, resigned amid scrutiny of her own personal real estate purchases across the United States.

BLM Canada co-founder Rodney Diverlus said in July that BLM Canada purchased the property “outright.”

BLM Canada’s chairwoman, Sandy Hudson, said in an op-ed that the property came with a “history of resistance,” having previously housed the Communist Party of Canada for over 30 years.

Canadian news outlets and activist groups reported in July that BLM’s national arm, which appears to have been leaderless since Cullors stepped down in May, provided the bulk of the funding for BLM Canada’s purchase of the Wildseed Center.

BLM Canada accessed a “restricted capital grant” from the movement’s national arm to purchase the property, Hudson explained during an interview in August with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Hudson also has close ties with BLM’s national arm. She claims on her National Speakers Bureau profile to sit on the “Black Lives Matter Global Network Strategy Table,” in addition to her service as the co-director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots.

Cullors’ spouse, Janaya Khan, also serves as a director of BLM Canada, according to the group’s Canadian charity registration.

BLM did not return numerous requests for comment asking how much it contributed toward the purchase of the Toronto mansion or whether Hudson or Khan played any role in its decision to provide funds for the property purchase.

Hudson comes with her own history of alleged financial malfeasance.

Hudson was sued in 2015 by her former employer, the University of Toronto Student Union, for allegedly approving $247,726 in overtime payments for work she never completed.

All parties in the lawsuit settled the matter in 2017. The University of Toronto Student Union issued a statement saying there was no evidence that Hudson committed fraud. However, the statement added she agreed to pay back a portion of the overtime payments in question.

BLM revealed last February it raked in $90 million in 2020 from big corporations and individual donors after the police killing of George Floyd and the nationwide riots that followed. The group said it closed out 2020 with $60 million in its coffers.

A coalition of 10 local BLM chapters came out against the movement’s national arm in late 2020, alleging that the group provided little to no financial support to local activists while simultaneously offering no acceptable transparency surrounding its finances and operations.

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