One thing most Americans don't understand about Canadian politics how much effort is put into limiting the influence of money. Corporations cannot make political donations in several provinces. Even unions can't contribute in some provinces. Individual donations to political parties are capped. On top of that, political parties have to adhere to campaign spending limits during election periods (although some do circumvent caps using third party PAC's).
In Alberta, where the organizer[1] of this GoFundMe is based, campaign spending limits for a provincial election are capped at $2,121,368 for a political party[2].
This GoFundMe just raised five times what an entire political party is allowed to spend during an election in Alberta.
Ostensibly, this cash was to be used to pay for gas and motel stays for those involved in the protest, but those truckers were never going to see a tenth of what Lich was given. Lich is a founding member of several Western separatist parties. Those parties, although they do have legitimate grievances that find some sympathy with moderates, take an approach that is wildly unpopular. Namely, separatism. They don't raise much money as a result. It's likely that Lich would have funnelled the remainder of this GoFundMe into support for one or more of the political parties she's affiliated with.
What could have happened is that, during the next few elections in Western provinces, we'd have seen a bevy of implausibly well funded PAC's shilling for Wildrose, Maverick, etc.. Their ads would have been similar in quality and quantity to those of the major parties. That could have significantly shifted the polls.
What about Lich's goals for the protest itself? As someone who wants to see Canada break up into several smaller nations, it's in her interest to demonstrate how weak and ineffectual the federal government is. What better way to do that than by blockading the capital and several key trade routes at the U.S. border while the federal government dithers and provincial governments do nothing?
Keeping money out of politics is a sisyphean task, but it's one most Canadians embrace. When GoFundMe's can raise this much cash in the blink of an eye, we have to recognize that the game has been fundamentally transformed yet again. In this instance, all that stopped a politically transformative amount of cash from flowing into a fringe party's hands was the hesitation of a foreign corporation. I fully expect regulations for political fund-raising through services like GoFundMe are going to be in the works shortly.
[1]https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/who-is-tamara-lich...
[2]https://www.elections.ab.ca/finance/expense-limits/