Third-party election ads had false info but didn’t break law, commissioner rules

WINNIPEG — Election advertising run by a political action group contained false information about Manitoba’s New Democratic Party but did not violate election laws, the province’s commissioner of elections, Bill Bowles, has ruled.

Bowles received complaints about text messages and ads issued by Regina-based Canada Growth Council Inc. in the run-up to the Oct. 3, 2023, election that criticized the NDP and its leader, Wab Kinew.

Among the group’s claims was that the then-Opposition NDP, if elected, would allow “free heroin and hard drugs for criminals.” The NDP were in favour of a supervised consumption site but had repeatedly said it would only provide a supervised location, not supply drugs.

“The statement that the NDP planned to give out free heroin is quite clearly false,” Bowles wrote in a decision released this week.

“I understand that (the council) claims that they believed it to be the case, and perhaps that is just possible. But such a remarkable claim should be verified, and a failure to do so suggests a reckless disregard for the truth, one that a court might well find is a sufficient intention to ground a conviction.”

While the information was false, the Elections Act does not forbid false statements about a party’s platform, Bowles added.

The law does forbid false statements about a candidate’s character or conduct, and some of the complaints Bowles received accused the council of falsely calling Kinew a “convicted criminal” in text messages.

Kinew was convicted of crimes two decades ago, and later received a record suspension, commonly called a pardon. Any prosecution of the council for making false statements about Kinew’s character or conduct could not succeed, Bowles wrote.

The council spent just under $34,000 on communications in the lead-up to the 2023 election, documents filed with Elections Manitoba show. The council was registered with the agency by Dale Richardson.

The CBC reported in 2023 that Richardson is a former Saskatchewan Party communications director. Richardson declined an interview request Tuesday, and said via text message that he was one of three directors in the group at the time.

Bowles also received complaints that the council may have acted in concert with the Progressive Conservatives and may have misused the voters’ list to get people’s phone numbers.

There was no evidence to support either assertion, he wrote.

The NDP won the election and captured 34 of the 57 legislature seats.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2026.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press