Social media has been an important election battleground for well over a decade, but no group in Canadian politics has ever used Facebook as effectively as Ontario Proud

OTTAWA — A right-wing activist group that has become the dominant Facebook force in Ontario politics is starting to plan its strategy for next year’s federal election — just as the federal government debates new rules for how to regulate such groups.

“We expect to do this nationally,” said Ryan O’Connor, a lawyer and director for Ontario Proud, speaking on Parliament Hill shortly after testifying to MPs about a new elections finance bill.

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He said it remains to be seen whether it would be through a new Facebook page or the existing one, but he noted they already target Prime Minister Justin Trudeau occasionally. That can be expected to ramp up after the Ontario election ends this week.

“Really, there is a void we think that we can fill, and we intend to fill it,” he said.

Social media has been an important election battleground for well over a decade, but no group in Canadian politics has ever used Facebook as effectively as Ontario Proud to quickly build a huge outreach network to spread its message. Founded by former federal Conservative staffer Jeff Ballingall, Ontario Proud started off as an anti-Liberal Facebook page at the height of the furor over Ontario’s hydro rates in February 2016, and has since amassed more than 364,000 followers.

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It boasts “engagement” statistics (the number of people seeing and interacting with the content) much higher than almost any Ontario media outlet, political party, or activist group, and Ballingall often posts data showing thousands or millions of views on an Ontario Proud post with zero money spent on advertising. The group has now raised enough money to fund television ads and phone polling.

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Its actual effect on the election is difficult to gauge, as Premier Kathleen Wynne was already tremendously unpopular when Ontario Proud started. And other third-party groups, particularly union-backed organizations such as the Working Families coalition, have long been a feature of Ontario elections. But it’s Ontario Proud’s skill at exploiting Facebook’s algorithm to spread its message while spending relatively little money that separates it from other organizations — and makes it more difficult to regulate.

There is also mounting criticism over how Ontario Proud operates. It is often accused of lowering the bar for political discourse with crude memes and videos designed specifically to spread on Facebook. Others argue it misleadingly describes itself as a non-partisan page targeting the Liberals, instead of its true nature as a pro-conservative outlet. (Notably, Ontario Proud immediately redirected its attacks to the Ontario NDP when that party began rising in the polls.)

Most recently, users on Reddit and Twitter have been complaining over a mass phone call and text messaging campaign run by Ontario Proud. People have posted screenshots of an unsolicited text message reading: “Hi, this is Olivia from Ontario Proud. Which political party will you vote for in the upcoming election?” It then gives a list of parties, as well as instructions for how to unsubscribe from future messages.

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Ontario Proud has responded by saying it’s conducting market research with publicly-available data, and isn’t violating any election or polling rules.

O’Connor pointed out that Ontario’s election finance laws don’t even require such polling campaigns to be counted as an election expense.

“It doesn’t fall within the definition of third-party political advertising in the election, so any third party can engage in polling, surveying,” he said. “We’re interested in seeing where the electorate lies in terms of what’s going to happen on Thursday…That’s really the purpose of it, to see whether those polls are really reflective of what’s going on. And also just to identify Ontarians who are engaged in the election.”

In terms of funding, Ontario Proud says it has more than 1,300 donors and they’re all from Canada, but it hasn’t disclosed who its largest funders are.

All of this controversy is likely to come up again nationally in the 2019 campaign, whether it’s through Ontario Proud or another group that can mobilize effectively through Facebook.

Bill C-76, the federal legislation introduced last month, is meant in part to update Canada’s elections laws for the rapidly-changing environment of social media platforms. For the first time, third-party groups will be capped on spending $1 million in the pre-writ period (which would start June 30 for years with a fixed election date). Unlike Ontario’s laws, that cap would include political activities such as polling.

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But advocacy groups will almost certainly challenge the pre-writ spending cap as unconstitutional, as they have in Ontario and British Columbia (the B.C. laws were struck down, while the Ontario case hasn’t yet been decided). There is also an exception for issue-based advertising, which could turn out to be a significant loophole.

As Ontario Proud starts eyeing the federal election, O’Connor said he views any pre-writ advertising limit as a violation of free speech.

“The ambit is much larger with the federal legislation than the Ontario one,” he said. “I think Parliament is going a little overboard in trying to address a problem that in my view doesn’t even exist.”