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I am trying to figure out the basis on which Elections Ontario says there was a violation of their (unconstitutional) third party advertising laws. Some tweets to follow. #onpoli https://twitter.com/TorontoStar/status/1275953112646397958
As a starting point, there was no general election taking place. There was a by-election. It is not reasonable to assume that the ads were more about the by-election in Ottawa than they were about the province-wide teachers strikes.
Here are the other criteria for determining if an ad is a “political” ad. Taken as a whole, it is hard to argue that the ads were really about the by-election.
But even if the ads were about the by-election (and they weren’t), where is the contravention? Does elections Ontario want to assign the entire cost of all the ads to the riding where the by-election took place? The ads were in all Ontario’s major papers.
Why would ads in Toronto papers by assigned to an Ottawa riding? It eliminates the entire meaning of “advertising in that district”. Here is the relevant provision:
Alternatively, does Elections Ontario believe that the cost of the ads must be assigned across all Ontario ridings, because these newspapers can be purchased anywhere in the province? In that case the cost of the ads would need to be +$4,000 in 121 ridings.
Are they suggesting these ads cost over $484,000? This is hard to believe. And on what basis does Elections Ontario have this belief?
This shows the problem with these types of election advertising laws. What should be legitimate policy debate and political dialogue is getting shut down by big-headed bureaucrats who don’t appear to understand their own laws.
And before we even start this analysis, these laws are on their face violations of the Charter right to free expression.
Here is a link to the act: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90e07#BK47
This type of gov conduct is why we are challenging the Federal Election Finances Act. The issues with that are different, but like Ontario's Act, the Canada Elections Act is a form of censorship. You can read about our case here: https://theccf.ca/electionslaw/
