Ontario's NDP is asking the integrity commissioner to investigate Brampton East MPP Hardeep Grewal over constituency advertising placed in a newspaper run by his father.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles filed the complaint Monday morning, alleging the Progressive Conservative MPP used his publicly funded constituency budget to purchase ads from a business owned by an immediate family member, according to Global News.
The newspaper at the centre of the complaint is the Punjabi Post, a daily Punjabi-language outlet founded in 2002 that says it reaches about 35,000 readers. Federal filings submitted with the complaint list Grewal's father, Jagdish Singh Grewal, as the paper's director. The outlet's own media kit names him as the contact for advertising, insertion orders, sales and contracts.
Past editions included in the NDP's submission show advertising for the MPP's local events, including a summer barbecue on the newspaper's front page and a Canada Day spread that ran for three days. The ads are non-partisan, promoting Grewal as a local MPP rather than the Progressive Conservative Party, which the NDP argues means they were approved by his office.
"A review of the Member's expenses has led me to believe that the Member may have violated the Member's Integrity Act, 1994, and I am requesting that you offer an opinion on the matter," Stiles wrote in her letter to the integrity commissioner, as reported by Global News.
In a statement, Grewal defended the outlet, saying the Punjabi Post is a popular ethnic news outlet in Brampton, a community with a large Punjabi-speaking population, and that political parties of all stripes have advertised with it. He acknowledged he should have consulted the integrity commissioner before placing the ads and said he has since reached out to her office for advice.
"We believe the member may have used public money from his Legislature budget to purchase services from a business solely owned by an immediate family member," the NDP complaint alleges.
Stiles drew a direct connection to the controversy over Grewal's travel expenses that surfaced earlier this month. The Brampton East MPP claimed more than $27,000 in Toronto hotel stays over the past three years, despite his constituency office sitting about 43 kilometres from Queen's Park.
"MPP Grewal just got caught with his hands in the taxpayers' pockets, spending nearly $30,000 on luxury downtown Toronto hotel stays, and now, potentially breaking ethics rules to enrich an immediate family member with tax dollars," Stiles said, according to Global News.
"If MPP Grewal's family members are benefiting from tax dollars, the people deserve to know," she added.
Premier Doug Ford criticized the spending by some of his MPPs last week and pledged they would repay the money, though his office has not said who else has paid back expenses. "It's unacceptable, it's not how we operate. We have to be prudent fiscal managers," Ford said Friday. "It's just unacceptable, and they're paying back every single penny of it."
The broader spending scandal has already claimed one member of the government. Stan Cho, the MPP for Willowdale, resigned after it emerged he spent $16,000 on hotels while living about six kilometres from Queen's Park. Cho said the claims were within the rules but admitted it was a "mistake" to bill taxpayers.
Stiles placed the responsibility at the top, saying Ford sets the tone for his caucus and that MPPs who spent tens of thousands of public dollars on hotels continue to have his confidence.
