“Vaughan Working Families” – the name of the group posted on the ad – “looks like a shell group, and Ontarians deserve to know where the piles of money to attack teachers is coming from.” – Ontario NDP MPP Ethics and Accountability Critic Taras Natyshak
News from Ontario’s New Democratic Party
Posted February 3rd, 2020 on Niagara At Large
So far, no one can contact anyone from the group that put this out, raising suspicions that some “shell group” may be involved.
(A Brief Foreword Note from Doug Draper, Niagara At Large –
This call for an investigation will be interesting to watch given concerns raised in other regions, including Niagara, in recent years that there may be entities out there, including online sites posturing as news media outlets, that are shells for one special interest group or another, or for certain political groups.
There were also suspicions last year that Ontario’s Ford government was using those stickers it was ordering gas stations to put on their pumps, opposing the federal government’s so-called “carbon tax,” as a way of using provincial tax money to help the Scheer Conservatives in a federal election. It is somewhat surprising that the federal Liberal government has not filed a complaint with Elections Canada about that.)
Queen’s Park, Ontario — The NDP has called on Elections Ontario to investigate advertising by a group calling itself “Vaughan Working Families.” The anonymous group placed full-page political advertisements that attack teachers in weekend newspapers — ads which appear to violate Ontario’s political advertising laws.
Published during two by-elections in Ottawa, these suspicious ads may break the rules that prohibit this kind of dark money politics during an election in Ontario. Third party political advertisers have to be registered, and cannot spend more than $4,000 on the ads.
Remember when Ontario’s Doug Ford government ordered gas stations across the province to put these stickers on their pumps, just weeks before the October 2019 federal election. At least some of us wondered if this was a case of the provincial Tories using Ontario tax money to help the federal Tories in the election. We Canadians better start watching for this kind of stuff.
“Vaughan Working Families looks like a shell group, and Ontarians deserve to know where the piles of money to attack teachers is coming from,” said MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex), the NDP’s Ethics and Accountability Critic. “Third parties have to play by the rules in Ontario, and Doug Ford can’t look the other way so his buddies can use PC Party messaging to attack teachers and help his agenda of cuts to education.
“I’ve written to Elections Ontario to request that the commissioner immediately investigates whether and how these advertisements break the rules, and who is behind them.”
Ontario’s Elections Finances Act makes it clear that political advertising should be transparent and accountable, unlike the full-page ads found in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, National Post and Toronto Star, which attack teachers during ongoing strikes caused by Doug Ford’s cuts to education.
For a related story on this issue, click on – https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ontario-ndp-vaughan-working-families_ca_5e386403c5b6bf30f18d338f
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