Elections Ontario closes complaint into Progressive Conservative MPP over newspaper ads

Elections Ontario has cleared a Progressive Conservative MPP after a complaint was submitted stating he had failed to declare advertisements placed in his father’s newspaper during the 2022 election.

Grewal unseated the NDP’s Gurratan Singh more than four years ago in Brampton East, winning the riding again in the 2025 snap election.

But in July this year, the Ontario NDP alleged that during that first campaign, Grewal failed to declare advertising in the Punjabi Post, which is owned by his father, Jagdish Grewal.

The opposition party submitted a complaint over Grewal to Elections Ontario. The Progressive Conservative MPP admitted the error, but said an invoice had been sent and “inadvertently not paid.”

The province’s elections oversight body accepted the explanation and allowed Grewal to pay for the advertisements and declare them four years later.

“An expense item is being directed to the Progressive Conservative Party Brampton-East constituency association by Elections Ontario to be included in the 2026 AR-1 constituency association annual return and disclosed as an expense,” an Elections Ontario officer wrote in an email to the NDP.

In a statement sent to Global News, Grewal said he welcomed the resolution of the issue.

“I worked with Elections Ontario to rectify the situation as quickly as possible,” he wrote in a message sent by the party. “Elections Ontario was satisfied with the actions taken and have closed the matter.”

The Ontario NDP has also requested an investigation by Ontario’s integrity commissioner into Grewal placing publicly funded advertisements in his father’s newspaper in his role as a local MPP.