News clips: Developers backed group that weaponized Facebook for Ford
‘Perfect response:’ the caption to a video that circulated on Facebook news feeds at start of 2018 provincial election campaign.
Ontario Proud’s Election Advertising Was Mostly Funded By Developers
BY GRAEME GORDON & JONATHAN GOLDSBIE Canadaland December 11 2018
Third-party advertiser Ontario Proud, which describes itself as a “grassroots” operation, received over half a million dollars in donations during the spring provincial election — 89.6 per cent of it from corporations.
Filings submitted to Elections Ontario on Friday show that the top donors to the Facebook-centric conservative advocacy group were Toronto-based housing developer Mattamy Homes, at $100,000; anti-union contractors association Merit Ontario, at $50,000; Nashville Developments, also at $50,000; Opportunities Asia Ltd. at $30,000; and Shiplake Properties Limited at $25,000. Seventeen other companies, mostly related to housing development, donated $10,000 apiece. Of the corporate donations received by Ontario Proud, at least 89.7 per cent came from companies involved in the development and construction industries.
“For once, anti-Liberal forces were able to fight back,” Ontario Proud founder Jeff Ballingall says when asked about his group’s fundraising.
Corporations fuelled Ontario Proud’s pro-PC election spending
By Mike Crawley · CBC News December 11 2018
Ontario Proud, a group credited with helping Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives win the provincial election, received nearly $460,000 in corporate donations to fund its campaign efforts, new documents reveal.
Development companies and construction firms contributed the bulk of Ontario Proud’s election campaign funding, according to the group’s newly submitted report to Elections Ontario.
Ontario Proud rose to prominence online in 2017 with Facebook posts targeting then-premier Kathleen Wynne. During the campaign, once the polls showed the New Democrats to be the biggest threat to the PCs, the group shifted its focus to attacking Andrea Horwath’s party. Ontario Proud’s Facebook page attracted more than 360,000 followers by the June 7 election.
Parliamentary committee asks Ontario Proud to reveal funding, telemarketing details
By Carl Meyer National Observer December 11 2018
The House of Commons ethics committee demanded Tuesday that right-wing group Ontario Proud hand over information about its out-of-province funding and reveal details about the telemarketing firm it used to blast out millions of texts and phone calls during the last provincial campaign.
The official requests from the committee came after a combative appearance by lawyer Ryan O’Connor, one of the founders of Ontario Proud who currently sits on its board of directors and counts the group as a client.
Ontario Proud — which O’Connor said wishes to promote things like lower taxes, accountability and ethics in government and “personal freedom” — was a major provider and amplifier of voices against former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne, and last month said its next objective was to “take down” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the 2019 federal election.
Ontario Proud’s arrival on federal scene renews fears about third party collusion
By Joan Bryden ipolitics November 4 2018
OTTAWA — A conservative political advocacy group that was instrumental in taking down the Liberals in Ontario is going national, aiming to do to Justin Trudeau what it did to Kathleen Wynne.
But the arrival of Ontario Proud on the federal scene renews questions about when political advocacy crosses the line into collusion with a political party, enabling the party to raise and spend more money than legally allowed and, in the process, undoing decades of effort to neutralize the influence of big money on Canadian elections.
Ontario Proud was founded by Jeff Ballingall, a digitally savvy former Harper-era Conservative staffer and erstwhile employee of the short-lived Sun News Network.
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