Fraud – Pride Toronto Grants

“The letter is not a document to the Assembly of First Nations, nor was it issued under the authority of any decision-maker of the Assembly of First Nations. The letter is attributed to a former staff member who left the Assembly of First Nations in July 2018.”
Assembly of First Nations, by email January 20, 2022.

This letter from The 519 was forged by Pride Toronto and submitted to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

While applying for its $600,000 CSMARI grant application, Pride Toronto forged a letter of support from The 519 and submitted this to the Department of Canadian Heritage. In producing this forgery, Pride Toronto stole the signature of an employee of The 519 and used their letterhead.

On reviewing this letter, The 519 issued the following statement:

“In terms of the copy of the November 2018 letter you provided to us, we (The 519 or any of our employees) did not author or send the letter to Pride Toronto.”
The 519, by email December 14, 2021.

This letter from the Toronto District School Board was forged by Pride Toronto and submitted to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Pride Toronto forged a letter of support from the Toronto District School Board and submitted this to the Department of Canadian Heritage for a $600,000 CSMARI grant. In producing this forgery, Pride Toronto stole the signature of Dr. Kathy Witherow and TDSB letterhead.

This forged letter promised a partnership to develop a Two-Spirit toolkit to be distributed to 600 schools. Pride Toronto faked this partnership.

On reviewing this letter, the Toronto District School Board issued the following statement:

“I have confirmed with Kathy’s office, this letter was not signed by her office.”
The TDSB, by email February 9, 2022.

This letter from the Peel Region District School Board was forged by Pride Toronto and submitted to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Pride Toronto forged a letter of support from the Peel Region District School Board and submitted this to the Department of Canadian Heritage for a $600,000 CSMARI grant. In producing this forgery, Pride Toronto stole Peel DSB’s letterhead. The letterhead used was outdated, it lists Tony Pontes as the Director of Education. However, at the date of this letter, Peter Joshua was the Director.

This forged letter promised a partnership to develop a Two-Spirit toolkit to be distributed to 253 schools. Pride Toronto faked this partnership.

On reviewing this letter, the Peel Region District School Board issued the following statement:

“I have made inquiries and have been unable to locate a copy/original of the document that you have provided. Further, I made the following additional inquiries based on the content of the document itself, as there are several issues with the content of the document on its face.

From the signature that appears on the document, we cannot determine who actually signed the document. There is no printed name, nor title on the document you provided. At the time of the date on the document, Peter Joshua was the Director of Education.”
Peel Region District School Board, by email February 17, 2022.

This letter from the Waterloo Region District School Board was forged by Pride Toronto and submitted to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Pride Toronto forged a letter of support from the Waterloo Region District School Board and submitted this to the Department of Canadian Heritage for a $600,000 CSMARI grant. In producing this forgery, Pride Toronto stole the signature of Assistant Director Peter Rubenschuh and the Waterloo Region DSB letterhead.

This forged letter promised a partnership to develop a Two-Spirit toolkit to be distributed to 121 schools. Pride Toronto faked this partnership.

On reviewing this letter, the Waterloo Region District School Board issued the following statement:

“Former Superintendent Rubenschuh has confirmed that he did not sign or approve this letter.”
Waterloo Region District School Board, by email February 17, 2022.

The signatures of Pride Toronto board members were forged on this document submitted in support of the $1,000,000 Fed Dev grant.

On August 1, 2019, Pride Toronto submitted to the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario forged signatures of the pride Board of Directors.

The forged signatures were used to empower Pride Toronto staff with sole discretion over the $1,000,000 Fed Dev grant.

Then board member Christin Milloy’s last name is misspelled with an “a” instead of an “i”, her signature also has this mistake.

This officer’s certificate was required before Pride Toronto could begin receiving the grant funds.

Click here to view the Pride Toronto $250,000 grant report, May 2019.

In a May 8, 2019 grant report submitted to Canadian Heritage for a $250,000 Commemorate Canada grant, Pride Toronto:

Claimed a “fully executed” contract with world famous Cree artist Kent Monkman
Claimed a “formal partner” in the Art Gallery of Ontario, who was to provide “match funding” and so the project had “doubled in size.”

Although Monkman was in talks about a project, these talks ended on April 29, 2019, over a week before this grant report was submitted:

“On April 29, 2019 I ended a year of talks with Pride Toronto due to the continued lack of a contract, disagreements over creative control of various project elements, and lack of confidence in Pride Toronto’s management of the project.”
Kent Monkman as quoted by CBC News, January 26, 2022.

The Art Gallery of Ontario provided the following statement in response to viewing this grant report:

“The AGO’s conversations about a potential collaboration were informal and preliminary, and no details of any kind were established.”
The Art Gallery of Ontario, by email July 29, 2021.