Those interested in politics will share my curiosity in the questions that have been raised in Question Period this week surrounding the relationship between the 'Working Families Coalition' (WFC) and Premier McGuinty's Liberal government.

Election observers will recall the 2003 campaign when the WFC ran a series of negative attack ads, primarily through television with the purpose of defeating the PC Party of Ontario - an unprecedented third party intervention into politics in Ontario. 

"Not this time Ernie," was the catchphrase of the multi-million-dollar ad campaign funded by a coalition of labour unions that ranged from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation to the Canadian Auto Workers Union.  

In the 2007 campaign, they ran attack ads again with the theme of "You Decide."  According to Buzz Hargrove, the objective of the group was to "make sure the Tories don't get elected here."  

Given the facts, it's not unfair to conclude that this group is nothing but a front for the Liberal Party of Ontario in an attempt to pass off their dirty work to another organization while also possibly subverting election spending laws, since third parties don't have election financing rules like political parties.

So what do the WFC and the Liberal Party have in common?  

Well, they share the same pollster, ad agency, strategists and donors.  

In fact Don Guy, former Chief of Staff to Premier McGuinty, runs the polling company they share.

Next, we need to follow the money.  

In Question Period on Monday, Opposition Leader Bob Runciman revealed that in June 2007, then Finance Minister and Chair of the Ontario Liberal Campaign, Greg Sorbara met with Pat Dillon, head of the Provincial Building Trades and principal of Working Families and Mike Gallagher, Business Manager of Operating Engineers Local 793. No records exist from this meeting.

One week later, Mike Gallagher's union received $3.3 million in tax dollars from the McGuinty Liberals.

In the 2007 election, Local 793 contributed $150,000 to the WFC, or 10 per cent of their total money raised.

This gets even more interesting when you consider that the various entities associated with the WFC made a combined total of at least $568,387.60 in donations to the Ontario Liberal Party, its candidates, and its riding associations since 2003.  

Given the strong connection between the WFC and the Liberal government, it is beginning to look like the recent announcement of $1.5 billion in re-training money is merely political payback to the unions who helped get them elected.  

If you look at the province's public accounts it will show that the bulk of the re-training money that was sent out prior to the election didn't necessarily go to colleges, it went to trade unions.  

For your interest, I have posted the list of the recipients of that pre-election training cash handed out on my website so you can see for yourself.

For the Liberals to team up with a third party to defeat their opponents is wrong.  It is an affront to free and democratic elections.  It is essentially a way to double your election spending through the backdoor.  That is why the Chief Electoral Officer ought to investigate this matter immediately.

Jim Wilson is the Conservative MPP for Simcoe-Grey.