EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
The firm that produced the Ontario government’s contentious Ronald Reagan ad has a family connection to Kory Teneycke, the Progressive Conservatives’ campaign manager, according to public records.
The ad uses voice clips of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan making a case against tariffs in a 1987 radio address, saying that “high tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.”
“Then the worst happens,” Reagan goes on to say. “Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs."
"Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the weight of prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition.”
A few weeks ago, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a plan to spend $75 million blasting it across U.S. networks.
After it aired, President Donald Trump called the ad a “serious misrepresentation of the facts and a hostile act” and called off trade negotiations with Canada. Trump has since claimed that “Ronald Reagan loved tariffs” and threatened to increase tariffs on Canadian goods by 10 per cent as a result.
Although the Ontario government has pulled the ad, Ford has defended it, describing it as “the most successful ad in the history of North America.” The premier’s office has said it reached 11.4 billion impressions through earned and social media alone.
Global News first reported that the ad was produced by Creative Currency, a firm the Ontario PC Party has used to produce campaign ads and, while in power, contracted for taxpayer-funded government work.
Creative Currency is run by Dennis Matthews.
Public records, including the company’s corporate profile report and an associated property record, along with information from social media profiles and elsewhere online, show that Matthews’ and Teneycke’s spouses are sisters.
Teneycke has managed Ford’s PCs’ three successful election campaigns. He runs Rubicon Strategy, a prominent lobbying firm, and is a trusted adviser to the premier.
Neither Teneycke nor Matthews responded to questions about their familial relationship, nor did the premier’s office.
Their ties have already been the subject of debate at Queen’s Park.
In question period on Wednesday, the Ontario Liberals’ parliamentary leader John Fraser hurled pointed questions at the government about Teneycke’s influence on government decisions, including the Reagan ad.
“We all know who’s running this government. It’s the man behind the curtain: the premier’s shadow premier, Kory Teneycke,” Fraser said.
“What are the connections between Creative Currency and Kory Teneycke, our shadow premier?” he asked later.
Fraser went on to ask about the money the province has spent on the ad and if the province paid a commission for the placement of the ad on U.S. networks, aa common practice for such agencies.
Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli said in his response to Fraser on Wednesday that the province’s Reagan-featured ad run wouldn’t cost $75 million after all, but instead “a fraction of that.”
Matthews told The Trillium that Creative Currency did not place the ad and was not paid any percentage of the ad spend, but declined to answer other questions because his company does not “comment on client work.”
The premier’s office did not respond to questions about how the ad was placed, if anyone was paid a commission, and how much Creative Currency was paid for its work on the ad.
A spokesperson for the premier said that “all procurement of government advertising is (by) non-partisan officials in cabinet office, not by political staff,” but did not say if those officials used a competitive or open procurement process.
According to the province’s public accounts, Creative Currency was paid nearly $2.2 million in taxpayer funds from 2022-23 to 2024-25, split between Cabinet Office — the ministry that supports the premier’s office — and the Office of the Legislative Assembly, which spending by the political party caucuses falls under.
The PC party paid Creative Currency over $4.8 million since 2022, its filings to Elections Ontario show.
Asked on Thursday about the connection between Teneycke and Matthews, Fraser said, “It’s kind of like (there’s) this web that’s out there and Kory Teneycke’s right in the centre of it.”
Fraser added that he feels their connection is “concerning, because you don’t want a cabal of lobbyists running your government,” especially in light of the controversy around the Skills Development Fund.
The Ministry of Labour funding program has been the predominant topic in the legislature since MPPs returned to sitting a week and a half ago. At the beginning of the month, Ontario’s auditor general released a report declaring that successive labour ministers’ selection of the recipients of $1.3 billion of grants hasn’t been “fair, transparent or accountable.”
As The Trillium reported, several groups with links to either the premier or the ministers who’ve been in charge of selecting Skills Development Fund recipients have received millions of dollars from the program.
Clients of lobbyists and firms sharing connections with Ford have also been hugely successful in getting grants from the program. Rubicon, Teneycke’s company, has led all firms, with over a dozen clients that have altogether received over $100 million from the program, since it was created in 2021.
—With files from Katherine DeClerq and Sneh Duggal