TORONTO The Royal Canadian Mounted Police says it’s investigating a group called the Vaughan Working Families after it published full-page advertisements in Toronto newspapers last year attacking striking teachers. The advertisements were published in February 2020 when all four major teachers’ unions in the province were engaged in escalating job action. The advertisements all opposed the strikes and appeared to support the provincial government. Elections Ontario eventually confirmed that the ads, which were published on the pages of the Toronto Star, the National Post and The Globe and Mail, violated the province’s Elections Finances Act. Election Ontario stated that there had been “an apparent contravention of section 37.5 and section 48 of the Elections Finances Act” and that Vaughan Working Families failed to register with Elections Ontario as a third party.
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