Anonymous Group Quietly Sent Conservative Delegates’ Contact Info to a Conservative Politician’s Personal Database

An anonymous group calling itself “Vote Family” quietly sent personal information about social conservative delegates for the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2021 policy convention to a database linked to a prominent anti-sex education activist and former Ontario PC leadership candidate.

In advance of the Conservative Party’s policy convention, Vote Family encouraged social conservatives to sign up for its mailing list where they could receive assistance in becoming a Conservative delegate and crafting delegate statements.

Vote Family also said it would provide them with a slate of socially conservative candidates Conservative members could vote for.

Vote Family is one of several anti-abortion groups that recruited social conservative delegates at the Conservative policy convention. Nearly 40% of the party’s elected National Council members were endorsed by anti-abortion groups.

Vote Family appears to have recruited delegates through online social conservative networks — the administrator of a private Facebook group called “Pray for \ Priez pour Leslyn Lewis” encouraged thousands of group members to buy Conservative Party memberships and attend Zoom workshops for Vote Family.

Facebook

Vote Family’s website says they were “working very hard to make sure that we have MANY strong, pro-family, “conservative” delegates in EVERY single riding.”

Vote Family also offered to help Conservative members “assess who are the ‘pro-family’ and ‘conservative’ delegate candidates; we will provide a list of a ‘slate’ of suggested candidates – VOTE FOR THEM!”

Vote Family also provided resources to help Conservative delegates write statements that would “attract other pro-family and conservative CPC members” to vote for them “without alienating other members.”

Vote Family’s website does not list any names, email addresses, phone numbers or link to any social media accounts connected to the organization. Instead, the group’s About page simply reads:

“VoteFamily is a Canadian organization dedicated to providing you with information on political candidates, issues and legislation so that you can make an informed choice when you go to vote. We are independent and not funded by any political party or candidate.”

However, HTML coding shows VoteFamily.ca is linked to a NationBuilder database owned by anti-abortion activist and former Ontario PC Party leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen.

VoteFamily.ca

NationBuilder is used by many political campaigns to identify supporters and build contact lists, and multiple websites can be linked to one database.

Neither Vote Family nor Granic Allen responded to questions from PressProgress about why the VoteFamily.ca website does not disclose that it is sending their personal data to Granic Allen’s database or clarify how their personal data is being used.

Tanya Granic Allen (Parents as First Educators)

According to federal corporate records, Vote Family is registered as a separate legal entity based in Ottawa.

The organization is registered at the home address of Theresa Snell, who worked on Granic Allen’s Ontario PC leadership campaign and serves as one of Vote Family’s three corporate directors.

Granic Allen is the former president of Parents as First Educators, a social conservative group formed to oppose former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s changes to public school sexual education curriculum.

On social media, PAFE encouraged supporters to register as Conservative delegates through VoteFamily.ca a number of times.

Parents as First Educators (Facebook)

During Granic Allen’s campaign for Ontario PC Party leader, Granic Allen infamously stated that children “could focus a bit more on math if they weren’t talking about anal sex in the classroom.”

When Granic Allen dropped out of the leadership race, she encouraged her social conservative base to throw their support behind Doug Ford, garnering Ford enough votes to become leader. Doug Ford later kicked Granic Allen out of the party for “irresponsible comments” promoting homophobia and Islamophobia.