Elections Ontario VS. WCO

From Parker Gallant; the last couple of sentences (which I have bolded) are the coolest bit:

A letter dated August 8, 2013, which Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) received from Elections Ontario, finally exonerated us from allegedly spending money in support of a political party during the provincial general election in 2011. 

A complaint was officially lodged with Elections Ontario January 13, 2012 by lawyer Clayton Ruby on behalf of Jude MacDonald. In an article in the Toronto Star January 17, 2012, MacDonald claimed WCO allegedly spent in excess of the “$500 threshold on political advertising during the provincial campaign without registering as a third party.”  MacDonald was quoted in the article: “I believe in democracy,” MacDonald said. “How much money they (WCO) are spending, I don’t know. All I do know is they did have billboards, lawn signs, they had a number of events where they had what looks like professionally printed signs and that adds up.”

 WCO did not contract for the sign(s) but that didn't stop Elections Ontario from investigating despite the denial of then President of WCO, John Laforet. Laforet was quoted in the same article:  “WCO had no budget for advertising. It’d be interesting to see what their concern is,” he said, while also denying WCO put up a billboard.

 In the almost two years it has taken WCO to prove the response from Mr. Laforet we also learned that Elections Ontario reviewed posts in a blog going by the name of “Big City Lib.”  The individual(s) behind this blog even went as far as to try to connect WCO to the Power Workers Union. 

Boy did I ever!  Including in this post where I discussed how the group seemed to fall apart in the wake of the last provincial election over money issues, just after it was discovered that the PWU has folded its social media campaign against the Green Energy Act.  But, as I have always been careful to note, the PWU/WCO link has never been firmly established.

In any case, I have heard a slightly different account of the Elections Ontario decision, but we will leave Mr. Gallant's story as is for the time-being.  It seems basically correct.