Embattled Progressive Conservative MPP Hardeep Grewal is facing an election finance complaint as the opposition accuses him of failing to declare campaign advertising in a newspaper his family owns.
Grewal unseated the NDP’s Gurratan Singh in 2022 in Brampton East, winning the riding again in the 2025 snap election.
But the Ontario NDP alleges that during that first campaign, Grewal — who is also under scrutiny for charging the taxpayer some $27,000 for downtown Toronto hotel stays — failed to declare advertising in a newspaper owned by his family.
Public records show that Hardeep Grewal’s father, Jagdish, owns and runs the Punjabi Post, a local Punjabi language newspaper in Peel Region.
Jagdish Grewal’s paper has featured large advertisements promoting his son.
The NDP has already submitted an integrity commissioner complaint for some of those promotions, which they allege saw public money go from Grewal’s office to his father’s company.
Now, the party is widening its complaint to claim election finance violations involving undeclared free advertisements in the Punjabi Post in 2022 — including spots that allegedly ran during blackout periods when all advertising is banned.
“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 Leader Marit Stiles told Global News.
“So if that’s the case, then Elections Ontario needs to investigate.”
Grewal didn’t deny the advertisements weren’t 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,” the MPP said in a statement sent to Global News by the party.
“They have since been paid and I have reached out to Elections Ontario for further direction to rectify this situation.”
Elections Ontario complaint
According to the NDP’s complaint, Grewal advertised his campaign in the Punjabi Post from May 18 until election day on June 2, 2022. The party said campaign expense disclosures do not include any funding paid to the publication.
The last two days that advertisements appeared in the paper were on election day itself and the day before, when most political advertising is banned.
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Elections Ontario rules allow some unmodified advertisements, like lawn signs or long-standing billboards, to remain in place during the blackout, but new advertisements in daily newspapers, for example, are banned.
“The Ontario NDP submits that Hardeep Grewal and/or the Conservatives violated the Election Finances Act by failing to report campaign expenses in their campaign returns and by running campaign ads during the blackout period in the 2022 general election,” part of the complaint addressed to Elections Ontario reads.
“Leading up to Ontario’s election day in 2022, half-page advertisements for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario candidate Hardeep Grewal appeared in 12 consecutive issues of the Punjabi Post.”
Grewal said it was not his responsibility to ensure the promotions didn’t run during the blackout period.
“We did not authorize any advertisements to run during the blackout period and expect all media outlets to follow rules in place on political advertising,” he wrote.
Separately, for the 2025 election, the NDP has complained Grewal hadn’t properly declared office space.
Grewal categorically denied that claim, saying it was false.
“My campaign office was leased through a commercial agreement and paid for by the campaign,” he wrote. “It is publicly available in the CR-3 for Brampton East filed with Elections Ontario.”
Integrity commissioner complaint
The Elections Ontario complaint is similar to an integrity commissioner investigation request sent by the NDP earlier this week.
On Monday, the Ontario NDP asked the integrity commissioner to probe Grewal’s spending, claiming he was using his publicly-funded constituency budget to advertise in the 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 placing the promotions.
“The Punjabi Post is a popular ethnic news outlet in Brampton-a community with a large Punjabi speaking population. Political parties of all stripes have advertised with the Punjabi Post,” Grewal’s statement said on Monday.
“Prior to advertising, I should have consulted with the Integrity Commissioner and have since reached out to her office for advice.”
The integrity commissioner’s office confirmed to Global News it had received the NDP’s complaint, but did not say if an investigation would take place.
“I think what’s really important here again, is you see what is an apparent pattern: a pattern of entitlement, a pattern of frankly 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 43 km from Queen’s Park.
Premier Doug Ford lambasted the spending from some of his MPPs and pledged they would repay what they had claimed, without offering any details.
“It’s unacceptable, it’s not how we operate. We have to be prudent fiscal managers,” Ford said on Friday. “It’s just unacceptable, and they’re paying back every single penny of it.”
That public telling off came from the premier despite the fact it was the government whip’s office that first told MPPs who didn’t have accommodation in Toronto that they could book hotels in the city during night sittings.
It’s unclear if Grewal has paid back the $27,000 he expensed.
Stan Cho — who spent $16,000 on hotels despite living six km 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” to make the taxpayer cover the costs of his hotels.
