NDP wants Elections Ontario to investigate donations to PCs by vaccine clinic company directors
CBC
The Ontario NDP is raising red flags over political donations made to Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative Party by the directors of a company that got a sole-source provincial contract to run vaccine clinics.
All four board members of a company called FH Health made the maximum allowable donations to the Ontario PCs within a few days of each other in September, according to Elections Ontario records. The government awarded FH Health a contract to offer COVID-19 booster shots at 10 clinics in the Toronto area earlier this month.
The news was first reported by the online publication Queen's Park Today.
Other people connected to FH Health also made maximum donations to the PC Party in the same short time frame, including the wives of two company directors, as well as a brother-in-law and business colleagues, the NDP revealed Thursday.
The PC Party received a total of $42,600 in September from the four board members and 10 others with links to the company. Ontario law allows an individual to donate no more than $3,300 annually to each political party.
The pattern of donations appears "shady," said the NDP's ethics and accountability critic Taras Natyshak.
"If that was done in a coordinated fashion through the corporation or through the PC party, then it potentially breaks the law," Nayshak said during a news conference on Thursday.
"When you've got executives making the maximum donation and their family members making the maximum donation all around the same time, that isn't just a fluke," he said.
Ontario's campaign finance laws make it illegal for companies to provide money to individuals to in turn donate to a political party, and also make it illegal for parties to accept any such donation.
"We follow all rules and guidelines set out by Elections Ontario and the Election Finances Act," said a PC Party statement issued Thursday.
FH Health chief of staff Patrick Kasebzarif was quoted Wednesday by Queen's Park Today as saying the individuals made donations "on their own and most certainly not at the behest or suggestion of the company."
CBC News asked FH Health Thursday morning to respond to the latest allegations.
The New Democrats are calling on the province's auditor general to investigate the awarding of the vaccine clinic contract to FH Health. The NDP also wants the chief electoral officer to probe whether the donations broke Ontario's campaign finance laws.
"It's egregious and it deserves to be investigated," said Natyshak. "It looks sketchy, it looks fishy. It looks potentially like a quid pro quo. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."
All public schools on P.E.I. are closed Friday and thousands of Maritime Electric customers are without power as strong winds create hazardous travel conditions across the province.
Prince Rupert, B.C., residents are celebrating the holidays this year with coastal flair.
In the four years Chelsey Simmonds has worked at the Eva Rothwell Centre, she has seen the need increase every year at the centre’s community food pantry.
CBC is once again looking to make the holiday season kind in Windsor-Essex.
Acute Care Alberta has extended its contract for another year with a private surgical facility at the centre of probes into health procurement and contracting.
As food bank use continues to climb across the province, front-line workers in Thunder Bay, Ont., are working to improve both food security and education.
More ads could soon be coming to Toronto’s subway system.
The driver wanted in connection with a fatal hit and run on Highway 401 earlier this week has been identified, police say.
There are mixed feelings about the proposed Grays Bay road and port project, among people who live in nearby communities.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse and includes graphic content.
Provincial police in Lambton County have charged a 23-year-old man with second degree murder following a death investigation that began this past Saturday.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government is forming a working group to tackle what it calls systemic issues in the justice system, but answers or solutions could still be months away.
A woman has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in a 2024 fatal hit and run in Truro, N.S., where the victim was dragged down the street, a case that went unsolved for more than six months.