The RCMP is investigating whether third-party ads backed by a prominent developer with ties to Ontario Premier Doug Ford violated election financing rules.
In February 2020, Vaughan Working Families ran full-age newspaper ads in the Toronto area attacking teachers unions, which the Ford government had locked horns with that winter. In June, Elections Ontario found that the ads had been an “apparent contravention” of election law.
The president of the corporation behind Vaughan Working Families, Vaughan Health Campus of Care, is Michael DeGasperis, a prominent developer whose ties to Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce were highlighted in a recent