Election finance complaint filed against Brampton MPP over father’s newspaper ads

Embattled Tory MP Hardeep Grewal is facing an election finance complaint after the opposition accuses him of failing to declare campaign ads in a newspaper his family owns.

Grewal unseated the NDP’s Gurratan Singh in 2022 in Brampton East, winning the race again in the 2025 by-election.

But the Ontario NDP claims that during that first campaign, Grewal – who is also under scrutiny for charging the taxpayer nearly $27,000 for hotel stays in downtown Toronto — did not advertise in a newspaper owned by his family.

Public records show that Hardeep Grewal’s father, Jagdish, owns and runs it Punjabi Posta local Punjabi language newspaper in Peel Region.

Jagdish Grewal’s newspaper has run huge advertisements promoting his son.

The NDP has already filed an integrity commissioner complaint about some of those promotions, which they allege public money went from Grewal’s office to his father’s company.

Now, the party is expanding its complaint to allege election finance violations that include free undeclared advertising in Punjabi Post in 2022 – including spots that allegedly ran during blackout periods when all advertising is prohibited.

“We can’t find any indication that Mr. Grewal paid for ads that were placed in his father’s newspaper during the election period and you can’t do that, that would be like a gift,” Ontario NDP Chair Marit Stiles told Global News.

“So if that’s the case, then Elections Ontario needs to investigate.”

Grewal did not deny that the ads were not declared, but said it was the result of an error that has now been corrected.

“The 2022 advertisements were billed by the Punjabi Post to the campaign and were inadvertently not paid for,” the MPP said in a statement sent to Global News by the party.

“They have since been paid and I have contacted Elections Ontario for further instructions to remedy this situation.”

According to the NDP’s complaint, Grewal advertised his campaign in Punjabi Post from May 18 to Election Day June 2, 2022. The party said the campaign spending disclosures do not include any funding paid for the publication.

The last two days the ads ran in the paper were on election day and the day before, when most political ads are banned.

Elections Ontario rules allow some unmodified ads, such as lawn signs or old billboards, to remain during a power outage, but new ads in daily newspapers, for example, are prohibited.

“The Ontario NDP submits that Hardeep Grewal and/or the Conservatives violated it Law on election finances failing to report campaign expenses on their campaign returns and running campaign ads during the 2022 general election hiatus,” reads part of the complaint to Elections Ontario.

“Leading up to Ontario Election Day in 2022, half-page ads for Ontario Progressive Conservative Party candidate Hardeep Grewal ran in 12 consecutive issues of the Punjabi Post.

Grewal said it was not his responsibility to ensure that promotions did not run during the blackout period.

“We did not authorize any ads to run during the blackout and we expect all media to follow the rules in place for political ads,” he wrote.

Separately, for the 2025 election, the NDP complained that Grewal had not properly declared the office space.

Grewal categorically denied that claim, saying it was false.

“My campaign office is rented through a commercial agreement and paid for by the campaign,” he wrote. “It is publicly available in CR-3 for Brampton East filed with Elections Ontario.”

Complaining about the Ontario election is similar to a commissioner’s request for an integrity investigation sent by PD earlier this week.

On Monday, the Ontario NDP asked the integrity commissioner to investigate Grewal’s spending, alleging he was using his publicly funded constituency budget to advertise on Punjabi Post.

The MPP appeared to confirm he had advertised in his family’s newspaper in a statement, admitting he should have asked the integrity commissioner before making the promotions.

“The Punjabi Post is a popular ethnic news paper in Brampton – a community with a large Punjabi-speaking population. Political parties of all stripes have advertised with the Punjabi Post,” Grewal’s statement on Monday said.

“Before advertising, I should have consulted the Integrity Commissioner and since then contacted her office for advice.”

The integrity commissioner’s office confirmed to Global News that it had received PHD’s complaint, but did not say whether an investigation would be launched.

“I think what’s really important here again, is that you see what an obvious pattern is: a pattern of entitlement, a pattern of honestly trying to hide things,” Stiles said.

Separately, Grewal has faced a week of questions after he claimed more than $27,000 to stay in Toronto hotels, despite his constituency office being 43km from Queen’s Park.

Premier Doug Ford criticized the expenses of some of his MPPs and vowed to pay what they claimed, without offering any details.

“It’s unacceptable, it’s not the way we operate. We have to be careful fiscal managers,” Ford said Friday. “It’s just unacceptable, and they’re paying every penny of it.”

This public statement came from the prime minister, despite the fact that it was the government whip’s office that told MPPs without housing in Toronto that they could book hotels in the city during night sessions.

It is unclear whether Grewal repaid the $27,000 he spent.

Stan Cho – who spent $16,000 on hotels despite living six kilometers from Queen’s Park – has already resigned amid a growing spending scandal for the Ford government.

The Willowdale MPP said the money he had claimed was within the rules, but admitted it had been a “mistake” for the taxpayer to cover the costs of his hotels.