5 Strange and Interesting Stories We Didn’t Have Time to Tell You About Before Election Day

Elections are a busy time.

A lot of things are happening. The news cycle moves quickly.

During the 2025 federal election, we broke major stories about Conservative candidates, we fact-checked AI-generated photos, we reality-checked viral misinformation, all while providing critical analysis of corporate power and centring issues that matter to working-class Canadians.

But sometimes journalists need to drop what they’re working on and pivot to breaking news. Other times politicians and news subjects simply refuse to answer questions. And Mark Carney calling a snap election obviously didn’t make things easier.

Here are just five examples of some of the many tips and leads PressProgress was looking into over the last few months that we didn’t get a chance to report out before election day.

1. Donors to Pierre Poilievre’s Leadership Campaign Apparently Picked Up $16,000 Tab for a Home Reno Contractor

Pierre Poilievre (YouTube)

Pierre Poilievre appears to have claimed a number of unusual expenses during his 2022 Conservative leadership campaign, including one for a home renovation contractor.

According to Elections Canada filings, donors to Poilievre’s leadership campaign picked up the tab for a $16,142 project contracted out to a company called Colcon Restorations. His campaign classified it as a “personal expense.”

While the filings make vague reference to “security upgrades,” neither Poilievre’s spokesperson nor the Conservative Party of Canada responded to questions from PressProgress about the scope of the work or what exactly was built.

The company’s website does include an undated 5-star client testimonial under Poilievre’s name leaving high praise for the quality of the company’s workmanship: “Colcon Restorations renovated my entire house with the highest quality, complete honesty and at a fair price.”

Client testimonials (Colcon Restorations)

While it’s unclear if the client testimonial is related to the same job Poilievre’s donors paid for, the expense nonetheless stands out given none of Poilievre’s leadership rivals claimed home reno projects as a personal expense, nor have other leadership contestants in recent history.

Aside from meals, transportation and temporary lodgings, most personal expenses claimed by leadership contestants have been quite modest in comparison.

In 2020, Erin O’Toole’s Conservative leadership campaign claimed $638 in personal expenses, including $228 for dry cleaning services, $261 for Rogers phone bills and one $150 purchase at Nordstrom Rack. In 2013, Justin Trudeau claimed $861 in personal expenses during his Liberal leadership campaign, including $581 for care of a dependent family member and $280 listed as “other.” In 2017, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh claimed nothing beyond costs for travel, hotels and food.

Most leadership campaign donors would likely expect donations, which are eligible for significant tax deductions, to go towards campaign offices or staff rather than upgrades to a candidate’s house.

Under the Canada Elections Act, leadership expenses refer to any “cost incurred … to directly promote or oppose a leadership contestant.” Elections Canada defines personal expenses as “expenses that the contestant incurred only because there was a leadership contest,” listing childcare or dry cleaning as possible examples.

In total, Poilievre’s leadership campaign return lists $85,149 for over a dozen different personal and living expenses that appear to relate to his principal residence, which is located in a “resort lifestyle” community on the outskirts of Ottawa.

That includes $62,734 paid to Brunic Consulting Inc., a company owned by Canada’s former Ambassador to Jordan and Iraq: Bruno Saccomani.

(Poilievre moved into a publicly-owned mansion at Stornoway shortly after becoming leader of the official opposition in September 2022. The National Capital Commission subsequently built Poilievre a new fence for $15,000, citing security concerns).

2. Conservative Candidates Promote and Defend Graphic Abortion Imagery

Facebook

Earlier this month, the Toronto Star reported Bas Sluijmers, the Conservative candidate in St. Catharines, left an important detail out of his biography – Sluijmers previously worked for an anti-abortion group called the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform.

According to the Star, Sluijmers travelled to Florida with CCBR to participate in the “Genocide Awareness Project,” a demonstration on American university campuses where anti-abortion activists erect giant billboards that “graphically compare the victims of abortion to victims of other atrocities, such as the Jews in the Holocaust.”

The Conservative Party downplayed Sluijmers’s involvement with the group, describing the candidate as merely having been an intern who was involved with the group for only “two months.” They added Sluijmers has “not been associated with it since.”

Sluijmers, whose political resume includes working as a legislative assistant to Conservative MP Arnold Viersen and as operations manager for Leslyn Lewis’ 2020 leadership campaign, reportedly got his start volunteering for former then Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

Photos of Sluijmers found by PressProgress on social media show him at a Genocide Awareness Project event in 2015 next to billboards with photos of dismembered fetuses. Other signs at the anti-abortion event include ones comparing abortion to physical child abuse, the Cambodian killing fields and lynchings of Black Americans.

The following year, Sluijmers attended the March for Life in Ottawa where he held a banner promoting a CCBR campaign to “outlaw abortion” by exposing the public to “graphic images” of abortion.

“We must use images of the atrocity of abortion to tear away the flimsy facade of ‘choice’ and reveal what is being chosen: the decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment of an innocent pre-born child,” the “End the Killing” campaign website explained at the time.

Facebook

Graphic abortion imagery has also been a top-of-mind concern for Poilievre’s candidate in the nearby riding of Elgin–St. Thomas–London South, who has some opinions on the topic.

Andrew Lawton, the right-wing media personality turned Conservative candidate, wrote a column for an anti-abortion publication called The Interim in 2019 titled “No right to be shielded from graphic images.”

In the column, Lawton defended CCBR’s graphic-imagery campaign after the group came under fire for leaving junk mail with gory images of fetuses in Southwestern Ontario mailboxes.

“Graphic abortion imagery forces viewers to confront the reality of abortion, which is why so many people want these materials relegated to places where no one can see them,” Lawton wrote. “Parents who complain about their children seeing graphic abortion imagery are actually trying to avoid answering questions about how killing unborn children is not only legal in Canada, but perfectly desirable within a segment of the population.”

Lawton also pointed to bylaws barring anti-abortion materials from being delivered to homes with “no junk mail” signs and bubble zones around abortion clinics as examples of censorship.

Lawton suggested “loud and proud pro-choice advocates” would be less likely to support abortion if they saw “what abortion actually looks like.”

3. The People’s Party of Canada is Giving Away a Free Handgun

People’s Party of Canada

Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada have been largely overshadowed by Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives during the 2025 federal election, but that hasn’t stopped the party from finding creative ways to get their message out to supporters.

For one thing, the PPC tried giving away a handgun to entice supporters to make a donation.

“The People’s Party of Canada is excited to let you know about this unique opportunity to enter a giveaway for an antique 1873 French revolver,” the PPC’s handgun giveaway contest website explains. “Donate any multiple of $25 to the Provencher PPC Association and automatically get an equivalent number of free chances to receive the full giveaway package.”

People’s Party of Canada

“The original wood grips are in immaculate condition for being nearly 150 years old,” PPC candidate Noel Gautron told PressProgress, adding that an “artist who deals with acrylic” added a PPC logo to give the gun a “dash of purple.”

The PPC’s four-page handgun giveaway contest rules include a disclaimer clarifying the party is not liable for any “personal injury” or “death” and that “donations are not tax-deductible.” Gautron explained that the PPC’s lawyer drafted the rules to ensure they were in compliance with Elections Canada rules on raffles.

4. True North Personality Introduced Himself to Prime Minister With a Magical Pseudonym

CPAC

This year’s leaders’ debates, which saw several right-wing alternative media outlets obtain accreditation and monopolize the post-debate scrums, led many to ask the question: “Who is a journalist?”

But with one staffer at the right-wing outlet True North, the question of “who” is a journalist may be more literal than figurative.

“Alex Zoltan with True North, if you thought my friend’s question was ‘odd’, you’re going to love this one,” the staffer grinned to Prime Minister Mark Carney before launching into a series of off-topic questions about gender.

Zoltan, who is also known as “Amazing Zoltan” on X, an apparent reference to a fortune telling robot, describes himself as a “citizen journalist and anonymous magician.”

Traditionally, magicians have often used pseudonymous stage names: Harry Houdini’s real name was Erik Weisz, The Amazing Kreskin’s real name was George Kresge and Alex Zoltan’s real name is Alexander Tirkanits.

Juno News (YouTube)

The Leaders’ Debates Commission told PressProgress accredited media were required to provide their “legal name and show matching ID.”

Candice Malcolm, True North’s founder and a board director of the True North Wire Service, did not respond to questions from PressProgress about whether Tirkanits is the only member of True North who publishes stories under a pseudonym or stage name.

Questions to Tirkantis’ professional email address listed on True North’s website ([email protected]) bounced back to sender.

Tirkanits was previously listed as a financial adviser at a BC credit union and claimed he was earning a “7 figure salary” in 2023. Working at True North would potentially represent a steep decline in income for the Amazing Zoltan – CRA records show that in 2023, more than half the outlet’s full-time staff earned under $39,000 while the top-earning employee brought in somewhere between $160,000 and $199,999.

Other questions left unanswered by Malcolm relate to what steps are taken to vet True North staff during their hiring process. One former True North staffer, who recently departed the organization, had a well-documented history as the head of a controversial campus conservative group that was disbanded by Toronto Metropolitan University’s student union and expelled by the Ontario PC Youth Association.

5. Ottawa’s Extremely Weird Food and Book Festival Returns

Photo: Luke LeBrun (PressProgress)

While not technically an election story, the Ottawa Food and Book Expo returned to Lansdowne Park’s historic Horticulture Building earlier this month, albeit with a new look and name.

Last year’s event featured far-right speakers, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, two separate doomsday cults, gourmet food stalls, a cougar dating event and People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier. After PressProgress reported the festival’s organizer, Ray Samuels, was operating under multiple fake names and other deceptive practices, participants, sponsors and the event’s emcee pulled out.

Angry vendors later said they lost thousands of dollars on the event. The Ottawa Food and Book Expo’s official social media account accused PressProgress of working on behalf Microsoft Windows creator Bill Gates, and Samuels launched a lawsuit against one of the event’s emcees, journalist Nora Loreto, and others despite having been already declared a vexatious litigant by an Ontario judge.

NEW: An Ottawa book festival platforming far-right speakers is using fake employees and misleading sponsors.

The Embassy of Mexico has pulled out of the event and organizations listed as sponsors want their logos taken off the festival’s websitehttps://t.co/Rp6WZTd9m7 #ottnews

— PressProgress (@pressprogress) April 27, 2024

This year, Samuels rebranded the event as the “Ottawa Easter Weekend Market: Festival of the Glebe.”

The festival, which took place at the same venue on April 19 and 20, included at least one booth run by an anti-vaccine group, though it was much smaller than the year before.

Prior to the festival, the event’s title sponsor, Desjardins, announced it was pulling out after being made aware of the festival’s history.

“After further consideration, Desjardins Ontario Credit Union will no longer participate in the ‘Ottawa Easter Weekend Market: Glebe Festival’,” a Desjardins spokesperson told PressProgress.

Despite the chaos a year earlier, the City of Ottawa said it had no ability to stop the festival from happening again, despite facility rentals being subject to terms and conditions and human rights legislation.

“The City is aware that this event is booked by Ray Samuels and his association with last year’s Ottawa International Food and Book Expo,” City staff told PressProgress. “The City is not involved in disputes between event organizers and their vendors, and has no direct information on these matters.”

“We also do not have legal standing or authority to resolve contractual disagreements between the event organizers that rent City facilities and their vendors.”