Foreign-Funded Activist Group Helping Andrea Horwath's NDP in Ontario Election

In my rant last week I accused foreign money of being behind the NDP resurgence in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, and probably elsewhere. Here, Brian Lilley explains how democracy in Canada is being usurped by foreign liberal billionaires. Makes one wonder if Lord Christopher Monkton was telling the truth.

Brian Lilley
Toronto SUN

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath speaks with senior citizen homeowners at a campaign event in Mississauga, Ont., on Saturday, June 2, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

If Andrea Horwath wakes up as Premier of Ontario on June 8, she may have a shadowy foreign-funded group out of Vancouver to thank for her win.

Leadnow was set up in British Columbia in 2011 by a pair of young Canadians with the full support of a Tides Foundation backed group that sought to organize for left-wing causes.

In the 2015 federal election, Leadnow targeted 29 ridings held by Conservatives and took credit for dumping the Tories from 25 of them.

Now this group, which runs shadow campaigns to get their preferred candidate elected, is working the Ontario election.

Leadnow is working to make sure Doug Ford isn’t elected Premier with their #NeverFord campaign. They are even targeting Ford in his own riding of Etobicoke North to block his local win.

Ontario PC leader Doug Ford greets supporters as he arrives for a breakfast meet and greet in Ottawa on Saturday, June 2, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

“If enough of us make calls, we can boost voter turnout enough to tip the scales of local races and deny local PCs their seats,” Leadnow says on their website.

They ask people to sign up with a form on their website to get instructions on how to make calls from their own homes.

“We’ll send you everything you need to get started: instructions, a script, and FAQs.”

The script instructs volunteers to hang up on PC voters and encourage backers of “progressive” parties to get out and vote.

Leadnow is trying to call 50,000 people in Ontario by June 7th with one simple message, don’t vote for Ford or the PC Party. They currently have phonebanking events — group calling essentially — set up for Belleville, Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Brantford and plenty of small towns.

The crazy thing is, none of this activity counts as a third-party election activity under Ontario law. Each of the 50 registered third parties can spend $101,800 during the official election campaign on advertising.

And that money must be raised in Ontario.

Leadnow is doing some advertising but is mainly using a complex and expensive phone system to reach voters. This system allows anyone, from anywhere, to log in and call voters, urging them to vote the left way.

None of those expenses are covered by the third-party changes brought in by Kathleen Wynne.

Setting up an expensive phone system not only isn’t covered by the law, it can be completely funded by money from outside of Ontario or even outside the country. In the past, Leadnow has admitted as much as 20% of their money comes from outside of Canada.

Leadnow is also the only one of 50 registered groups with an address outside of Ontario. They are also far more sophisticated in directly reaching voters than any other group.

Why is a Vancouver-based group, substantially funded and founded by American billionaires through a San Francisco based foundation working against Ontario’s PC Party?

Because this is what they do.

Leadnow is one of the many third-party groups, often funded by wealthy Americans, that have one mission. Stop conservative politicians and policies.

They have some radical ideas.

When Justin Trudeau gave Omar Khadr his $10.5 million payment, Leadnow asked people to sign up in support of Khadr.

I am not aware of Leadnow's campaign in support of Omar Khadr, but I do support Khadr anyway as he is completely innocent of injuring or killing American Marines.

Leadnow also campaigns against the oil industry and most recently the Trans Mountain pipeline.

There are connections to the Liberals and NDP. One co-founder of the group, Adam Shedletzky, was a senior policy advisor to Wynne until the election was called. Amara Possian, Leadnow’s 2015 election campaign manager, is running for the NDP against Wynne in Don Valley West.

This week the PCs sent a letter to Elections Ontario alleging collusion between the NDP and Leadnow. The party says a Toronto operative is working for both groups in contravention of the law.

Leadnow says they want to contact 12,000 voters this weekend alone and get people out to the polls.

It really will leave everyone wondering, if Horwath wins next week will she have done it on her own or with an assist from an outside, out-of-province group.

McConnell Firmly on the Dark Side - Destroying Democracy

Mitch McConnell sneaks provisions into budget bill to further enable ‘dark money’

Mitch McConnell
© Joshua Roberts / Reuters

The Senate’s majority leader buried provisions in the massive US$1.1 trillion end-of-the-year spending bill that will prevent watchdogs from investigating political spending of companies and imposing regulations on ‘dark money’ groups.

The new bill prevents the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from implementing any “order regarding the disclosure of political contributions, contributions to tax exempt organizations or dues paid to trade associations,” the bill says.

The IRS have also been targeted in the bill, and are now unable to issue a rule in 2016 regarding the level of nonprofit organizations political activity. Advocates for financial reform argue that the current system allows American elections to be bought by ‘dark money’ and ‘anonymous’ donors.

Indeed the current system has gutted democracy in America; it is all smoke and mirrors now. McConnell's unannounced, sneaky provisions will only serve to weaken democracy even further. I think POTUS should have refused to sign the bill and required the Senate to remain in session right through Christmas if necessary to clean this bill up.

I'm amazed at how quick and spirited Americans are in defending their right to bear arms and their right to keep America safe from militant Islam. And yet, they allow their democracy to be gutted, a far worse disaster, with hardly a word. Where are your priorities, people?

‘Dark money’ refers to the funds given to nonprofit organizations that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions, and spend their funds to influence elections, but are not required to disclose their donors.

McConnell has been a continuous advocate of unlimited secret campaign spending in Washington, often citing free speech as the reason.

The senior Kentucky senator’s own campaign has benefited from US$23 million of ‘dark money’ from independent groups like the National Rifle Association and the Nation Federation of Independent Business.

“Spending by organizations that do not disclose their donors has increased from less than US$5.2 million in 2006 to well over US$300 million in the 2012 presidential cycle and more than US$174 million in the 2014 midterms,” according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

For example, the Conservative Solutions Project has run more than 4,882 ads in support of Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, and not a dime of its funding has been made public, reported Mother Jones.

The nonprofit organizations are, in theory, regulated by the IRS, but because of the new legislation McConnell introduced, the IRS can’t investigate the people or corporations who finance campaigns like Rubio’s run for presidency.

Historically, traditional political action committees (PACs) had strict limits on how much businesses, nonprofits and individuals could give. But a landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling opened the door for unlimited amounts of cash to be donated to influence campaigns, because restricting this behavior would be akin to restricting what people can say, violating the First Amendment.

This isn’t the first move the majority leader has made to push his secret spending agenda. In last year’s budget he pushed through higher limits for campaign contributions to party organizations, making way for wealthy donors to give hundreds of thousands of dollars.

McConnell tried again to remove limits on how party committees spend money during this year’s budget negotiations, but stood down after he received heavy opposition from Democrats, some Republicans and campaign finance reformers, reported The Hill.

"We do feel good about what we did get and would love to have achieved more. And it's going to take a new president of a different party to achieve what we'd like to achieve,” McConnell said to the Associated Press when speaking about the bill.

And what is that, Senator. It seems you just want the richest man in the US to appoint the President. That's basically what you appear to be working toward.

At a 2010 DNC rally, President Obama said that special interest groups that pour money into attack ad campaigns without ever having to disclose their spending are “a threat to our democracy.” In July of this year, it was reported Obama was considering an executive order to require all federal contractors to disclose their dark money spending.

"The president is pleased with the final product, even if it does reflect the kind of compromise that's necessary when you have a Democratic president negotiating with large majorities of Republicans," said press secretary Josh Earnest after Obama signed off of the latest budget bill.

What on earth did they threaten him with? This is very disappointing. The most powerful country in the world will be run by a handful of unelected oligarchs whose only goal will be to get even more filthy rich regardless of the cost in lives and suffering.