August 6, 2026
Greg Essensa
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
26 Prince Andrew Place, Toronto, ON, M3C 2H4
Dear Mr. Essensa,
The Government of Ontario is using taxpayer money to run advertising that carries the Progressive Conservative Party’s campaign slogan — in a riding where a by-election underway. I am asking your office to rule on whether this breaks the rules that bind every other participant in an Ontario election.
Ontario is now in an active writ period. In Scarborough Southwest, the government is running paid radio advertising — heard on 680 NEWS — that promotes its work on the Scarborough Subway Extension and includes the tagline “Protect Ontario”: the exact slogan the PC Party campaigned on in the February 2025 general election.
Strip away the government disclaimer and this is a partisan campaign ad paid for by the public. It uses the governing party’s slogan, it touts a marquee local project, and it is broadcast into a riding while voters there decide who represents them — all without the registration, disclosure or spending limits that bind every party, candidate and third party under the Election Finances Act. No one else in this by-election gets to advertise with public money and no limits. The government should not either.
The ad’s message is misleading, too. It touts progress on a subway that has ballooned from $5.5 billion in 2019 to $10.2 billion, and that internal TTC documents show will not open until 2033 — three years late. Nor is it a one-off: over two years the government spent a record $215.4 million on advertising, $106.7 million of which the Auditor General flagged as designed mainly to make the governing party look good. What is new is the timing and target — a by-election riding, during the writ — and that is what makes it your concern rather than the Auditor General’s.
I therefore respectfully request that your office rule on the following:
1. Whether the “Protect Ontario” advertising now running in Scarborough Southwest is, in substance or effect, political advertising under the Election Finances Act, given that it carries the governing party’s campaign slogan during a writ period;
2. Whether it must therefore be registered, reported, counted toward a spending limit, or subject to the blackout-period rules — and whether the same applies to any comparable advertising in York–Simcoe and Hamilton East–Stoney Creek; and
This advertising is on the air now, so I would be grateful for your urgent attention.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Smyth, MPP
Toronto—St. Paul’s
cc: John Fraser, MPP, Interim Leader, Ontario Liberal Party