NDP to ask Elections Ontario to investigate anti-teacher ads linked to lawyer with PC connections

The NDP says it will be asking Elections Ontario to investigate a possible link between the Ford government and a group that ran anti-teacher advertisements in four national newspapers.

The ads, from a group calling itself “Vaughan Working Families,” have been linked back to a Vaughan lawyer with Progressive Conservative (PC) connections, according to the Toronto Star.

The full-page ads ran in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Sun last weekend and say parents support the government during a tense round of contract talks with provincial teachers’ unions.

According to the Star, invoices for the ads costing more than $200,000 were sent to Loopstra Nixon LLP. Calls to the law firm were forwarded on to Quinto Annibale, a partner in the firm and a director of “Vaughan Working Families,” as per corporate records.

Annibale was appointed by the Conservatives as vice-chair of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) last April. He refused to comment when contacted by the Star.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s office said he was “not involved or aware of the creation of these advertisements.”

The NDP called for an investigation into the ads on Monday. NDP ethics critic Taras Natyshak said the full-page ads violate the province’s election spending rules with two byelections currently underway in several Ottawa-area ridings.

On Friday, NDP MPP Peter Tabuns announced he will be asking Elections Ontario to “investigate possible collusion” between Vaughan Working Families and Doug Ford’s PCs.

“Prominent Conservatives have spent big money buying ads supporting Doug Ford, yet Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce still claim they know nothing about it,” he said at a news conference at Queens Park. “The story that Lecce and the Ford government knew nothing about a six-figure campaign run by a party insider is simply not believable.”

Tabuns added that alleged cooperation between a third-party and a government party is illegal under the Elections Act and the NDP is calling for an investigation because the stories so far “don’t pass the smell test.”

“We have a shadowy organization spending big money with people involved who seem to be very, very close to this party – a long history,” he said. “There’s enough here to justify an investigation.”