Wynne Aid Co-Founded Powerful Foreign Funded Anti–Conservative Group
Adam Shedletzky, a senior policy advisor to Kathleen Wynne, co-founded the controversial political advocacy group, Leadnow back in 2011 along with Jamie Biggar. LeadNow is a political advocacy group that works to influence elections here in Canada and help candidates who promote "progressive" causes.
Although the organization maintains a stance of official non-partisanship, in effect they have an "anyone but the Conservatives" approach to politics. In fact, they openly brag about their success in defeating the Conservatives in the 2015 federal election on their website saying:
"During the 2015 election, Leadnow's Vote Together campaign connected millions of people who wanted change with the information and tools they needed to defeat the Harper Conservatives."
That doesn't sound very non-partisan to me.
However, this should come as no surprise given that the organization was co-founded by one of Kathleen Wynne's senior policy advisors.
Leadnow came under fire in the spring of 2017 following a complaint launched to Elections Canada by a group of individuals alleging that Leadnow had skewed the results on the election and had done so in part through foreign funding from the US-based, anti-oil, Tides Foundation.
This led the commissioner of Elections Canada, Yves Cotes, to state at a Senate Committee hearing last spring that:
"Issues of significance have been raised . . . which in my view deserves Parliament taking the time to looking at the situation, trying to understand what has happened, what is likely to happen and then taking measures . . . to make sure there is compliance."
All of this, in turn, has lead to Conservative Senator Linda Frum introducing Bill S-239 which would close the loophole that currently allows foreign money to influence our Canadian elections.
In the meantime, Leadnow has kicked the ol' campaign machine back into high gear to help out their friend Premier Wynne in her bid for re-election this June against Doug Ford.