Opposition parties are calling for an investigation by the province’s election body and the OPP after complaints surfaced from people who said they received fake invoices from the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario asking for money.
Veronica Doyon told Global News she received the letter and thought it was just going to be a general donation request. However, she said she was “surprised” with what she was glancing at and the “amount due” was $300, noting the letter appeared to be coming from a “credible” source.
“Am I being charged for something or being billed for something? The more I looked at it I just got so angry. I was confused at first, shocked,” Doyon said.
“I was able to see that it was actually them asking for more, not any actual amount owed. But I am concerned that there is definitely a population out there who would be affected by this, who could have already made a payment or who will make a payment thinking that they have to, not that they want to or choose to.”
Gregory Gies, who lives north of Kingston, told Global News he is one of the people who received the document on Tuesday. He said it came in an envelope with the Ontario PC Party logo and the words “important” and “invoice enclosed.”
“I thought this was going to be very interesting and so I open it up and this big 8.5-by-14-inch piece of paper that says invoice on it and saying I owe $800,” Gies said.
“My feeling was that this was some imaginative fundraising that’s pushing the bounds of ethics and the law perhaps, but I was ready just to throw it in the pile of paper we use to light the wood stove in the fall.”
He went on to say his impression of the party has diminished after receiving the letter.
“My feeling is if you resort to misleading terminology and misleading methods to raise money for the election, how truthful are you going to be with me once you’re in power? It raises questions as to the credibility to the party as a whole in my mind.”
Complaints began to appear online on Tuesday with a picture posted on Reddit by user “miss_rebelx” gaining plenty of attention. It was posted with the headline, ‘This makes me angry — and definitely won’t get my vote or money.’ It appeared to show a document with the Ontario PC Party logo and the word ‘invoice’ in capital letters along with a requested sum of $300.
“Please respond today,” the document said along with the description “election readiness fund” and the phrase “balance due.”
“Please pay the enclosed invoice to send Doug Ford the clear message that we’ve got his back. Your generous donation is the first critical step in the re-election of Premier Ford and his Ontario PC government.”
The post prompted a flurry of comments on the platform since it was posted.
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Tyler Watt, the Ontario Liberal Party’s candidate for the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean, posted a screenshot of the picture on his Twitter account on the same day. His tweet garnered thousands of retweets and likes from users as well as hundreds of comments.
“Had to let my elderly mother know that she is not obligated to pay this. It is not a bill. @OntarioPCParty and @fordnation are trying to scam seniors. Not exactly for the people,” Twitter user @Mr_O_Tweets wrote in response.
As of Wednesday, Global News wasn’t able to determine exactly how widely circulated the letters were or who exactly was involved in the decision-making.
Reporters contacted the Ontario PC Party multiple times on Wednesday to ask about issues surrounding the widely shared social media posts, but a response wasn’t received.
However, Global News visited the Toronto address contained on the documents posted online. The office suite, according to website and signage at the front door, belongs to iMarketing Solutions Group (which lists its Canadian head office at the site) and the Responsive Marketing Group, which bills itself as “Canada’s preeminent integrated political marketing services company” and promotes experience with voter contact and fundraising. It has had long-standing connections with Canada’s Conservative parties and campaigns, and it was involved in the decade-old ‘robocall’ scandal.
An unidentified representative inside the office yelled at a reporter when they were asked about the documents, saying, “You can’t come into an office that you weren’t invited to,” and telling the journalist to contact a media line. The reporter was at the office for approximately half an hour and stood in the hallway. Copies of the bogus invoices could be seen in the garbage can of a mailroom.
The representative said they were calling police officers. The reporter and his camera operator waited for several minutes before leaving. While the reporter was at the property, officers didn’t show up.
As of Wednesday evening, responses still weren’t received from the firms at the office suite or the Ontario PC Party.
In response to the posts, the Ontario Liberal Party issued a letter and the document “misleading,” saying a review by Elections Ontario as well as the OPP’s anti-rackets and anti-fraud unit was being requested.
“The Conservatives need to stop this manipulative scam now. I’m also calling on them to do the right thing and return any money they may have already received through this tactic to the Ontarians who worked hard to earn it,” Brian Johns, the party’s president, wrote in part.
The letter went on to cite the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre website and false billing scams targeting businesses, which describes such a scam as “receipt of an unsolicited invoice and demand for payment where no product or service was requested.”
Taras Natyshak, the Ontario NDP’s ethics critic and the MPP for Essex, wrote a letter to the chief electoral officer at Elections Ontario in response to the document.
“It is deeply concerning that the premier would authorize a fundraising letter created to deliberately confuse or alarm vulnerable individuals into a donation to his campaign. I ask that you review the attached correspondence to determine if it violates the Elections Act and hold the PC Party and the premier responsible,” he wrote.
An Ontario NDP spokesperson told Global News in an update that Elections Ontario reported the matter was outside of their purview. The party redirected its complaint to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Green Party of Ontario Leader and Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner called the fundraising letter “a misleading tactic rooted in trickery to raise money,” echoing demands for a probe
“Ford should apologize as leader and instruct the party to stop using tricks to dupe people into giving his party money,” he said in a statement.
READ MORE: Could Doug Ford and Ontario’s PCs impact federal party standings in 2021?
Global News contacted Elections Ontario and the OPP, but responses weren’t received by the time of publication. However, after the story was published, an OPP spokesperson told Global News the service received a letter from the Ontario Liberal Party asking for an investigation into the matter.
“The OPP will evaluate the request to determine whether a criminal investigation is warranted,” a brief statement Wednesday afternoon said.
There were also calls for Ontario’s integrity commissioner to investigate the matter, but a spokesperson told Global News in a statement the office doesn’t have the authority to look into the actions taken by political parties.
— with files from Sean O’Shea
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