QUEEN’S PARK — Charles McVety and his Canada Christian College (CCC) either donated or rented meeting and event space to Doug Ford’s leadership campaign — but it was never reported in Ford’s financial returns. It’s illegal to take unaccounted-for donations. It’s illegal to fail to report an expense on a campaign financial return. It’s also not legal for a Canadian charity to make political donations, or for a politician to take them.
“This looks like yet another backroom, under-the-table deal cooked up between Mr. Ford and his political backer Charles McVety,” said NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre). “Maybe this is one of the reasons Mr. Ford and the entire PC Party government is paying back McVety — an unrepentant bigot — by gifting him the right to call his school a university, and issue degrees in arts and sciences.”
The NDP has obtained Doug Ford’s detailed leadership campaign financial filing. While it shows that the Ford campaign paid to rent meeting space at places like Deco Labels, and properly accounted for that, he did not report a payment to rent Canada Christian College. Ford’s leadership campaign was set up at CCC for at least a week in February 2018. Event space rentals need to be accounted for at market rates, according to Elections Ontario.
The NDP has written to Revenue Canada to call on it to investigate CCC’s charitable status and failure to report political donations. Charities may not make political donations.
The NDP has written to Elections Ontario to report the damning omission on the financial returns of Ford’s leadership campaign. Candidates or political parties may not take donations — cash or in-kind donations — from registered entities like charities, businesses or unions. They must report all campaign expenses and pay fair market value for those items.
Background
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