EXCLUSIVE: Who is behind the Findlay Files?

PENTICTON — An anonymous X account calling itself “The Findlay Files” has spent the summer leaking caucus audio, private chat, and campaign gossip. Western Standard asked four people accused of being behind the account whether they run it. Three answered our questions, while one did not.The four-man informal ‘suspect lineup’ includes a Caroline Elliott leadership campaign staffer, a Kerry-Lynne Findlay supporter, a Swiss-origin college professor, and a Winnipeg-based communications man who — unlike the three others — refused to answer any of our questions on the matter.First, some background on the account itself: the @thefindlayfiles X account was created July 26. Its account bio calls its material “satire,” with its first post catching the attention of social media users for its apparent homage to the 1990s science fiction television program The X Files..The irreverent satire format did not last, however..The same handle, shortly thereafter, sent out a flurry of leaks that have dogged the Findlay-led BC Conservatives ever since.The first leak of major significance was of an alleged leadership campaign group chat in which Findlay is said to have referred to Richmond-Bridgeport MLA Teresa Wat as “CCP” — shorthand, presumably, for “Chinese Communist Party.”.Wat left caucus August 26 citing the leak, and what she later described as an unfulfilled promise to apologize for it, as one of her main reasons for leaving..Another major leak was a secretly recorded clip from the BC Conservative’s first official caucus meeting under Findlay's leadership in Penticton on July 2 and 3. A voice that sounds like Findlay sketches how a sitting MLA could step aside, take a senior-advisor role in the same portfolio, and open a byelection..“If someone was willing to step aside, I could give them a role as a senior advisor in their same portfolio so that they’re very much involved and around,” the voice says. “But, you know, it would allow for a by-election.”In response to the Penticton caucus leak, Findlay said she could not determine whether the file was authentic, but then treated the content as hers anyway, calling any criminality tied to the matter “preposterous.”.“Although unable to determine authenticity, it appears that an anonymous X account has posted a surreptitious recording of a response to a question about our future plans,” she wrote. She called the Criminal Code suggestion “preposterous” and the post “a weak attempt at a political smear job and nothing more.”.Ian Paton, a former BC Conservative MLA, left the party August 24 and later said he too was offered an “inducement” in exchange for stepping down and opening a seat to Findlay.The aforementioned leaks, among many others, leave onlookers with many unanswered questions. But perhaps the most compelling, if not simple, of them is: who exactly is running the @findlayfiles account in the first place?Western Standard has identified four ‘lead suspects’ and reached out to each of them for comment.The first of them is Domenic Cinalli — a Findlay support and individual who had been identified by the @findlayfiles as potentially being behind another anonymous account that attempted to satirize the already satirical @findlayfiles operation..“Domenic was also rumoured to be behind the hard-hitting, if short-lived, @bcwarroomhq account, whose AI-generated, Pokémon-themed videos celebrating his KLF fandom are now hidden from public view,” the Findlay Files account wrote on September 3..A man accused by the satire account of running the satire-of-the-satire account is, on paper (or a tin foil hat), a potential suspect for the original.Cinalli has no time for the theory. “Cowards hide behind fake accounts just like these Findlay Files,” he posted in August. “I’ve never hidden behind an account and if you go back through my account I’m up front as me saying thus so do better.”As an alternative explanation, Cinalli pointed his finger at figures within the Caroline Elliott campaign as being the alleged culprit behind the @findlayfiles account.“Well you never got messages starting this morning at 7:15am from Caroline’s team and just very coincidental and all,” he further wrote on X.Cinalli later confirmed with Western Standard the “7:15am” message was from Elliott leadership campaign staffer Nihaal Singh..That pointed accusation is the primary reason Singh has been included as the second “lead suspect” in the Western Standard’s investigation.Asked whether he runs the handle he has been roasting, Singh similarly denied the allegation.“No, I’m not behind any fake X account,” he told the Western Standard in response to questions asked of him several weeks ago. “I have neither the time nor desire to engage in petty and public displays of childish behaviour while real people suffer real consequences of real decisions.”Unlike Cinalli, Singh did not accuse anyone else of running the account.Others on social media, however, have pointed their finger at Bryan Breguet, owing to the Findlay Files account’s apparent connections to the tiny Central European country Breguet once called home..Born in Switzerland, Breguet chairs the economics department at Langara College, publishes seat projections at Too Close To Call, and was the Conservative nominee in Vancouver-Langara in 2024.He answered the Western Standard in four lines. No roles whatsoever. Never been approached by “these losers.” And: “I don't for sure who they are but they are big losers, that's for sure. And yes you can quote this.”Like Singh, Breguet declined to offer a suspect of his own.Jonathan Ross was identified by different means. He is also the only one of four suspects who went quiet..The Western Standard is naming Ross as the last of its four ‘suspects’ upon receiving a confidential private investigator’s dossier naming him as a “person of interest” potentially involved in the @findlayfiles account.Ross is a political communications consultant who posts on X as @tdhross.His firm is TDH Strategies, with House of Commons expenditure reports showing TDH billed Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal for communications work in 2022 and later then-Independent MP Kevin Vuong in 2024.Ross’s consulting resume shows him hanging in BC political circles despite operating primarily from Winnipeg.He's also not a stranger to accusations placing him at the centre of anonymously-run political campaigns.A recent example is ResignKevin.ca. The domain was registered May 21, 2024 and presented itself as BC United members telling then-leader Kevin Falcon to go.Veteran BC politics reporter Bob Mackin asked Ross if the site was his. “Flattered for the inquiry,” Ross wrote May 28, 2024, “but I have nothing to do with that pathetic party or provincial politics - not my scene.”The dossier also flags shared writing tics — a spaced hyphen (-) where an em dash would normally belong along with some other overlapping stylistic writing traits..Another clue offered by the confidential private investigator dossier: on May 30, results night, Ross lit into Max Genest.Genest, like Ross, is a Winnipeg-based man.He is a member of the anti-immigration and self-described nationalist group known as the Dominion Society, and was an unsolicited Findlay endorsement who showed up to both the leadership convention and to her post-victory celebration.Ross called Genest a “vile creature,” and said his “bigotry isn’t welcome.”.At that time, the Files account did not exist yet. It was created July 26.On August 18, however, it ran its own Genest item offering a similar pattern of critical commentary and questioning who had invited him into Findlay’s private victory gathering..The private investigator dossier received by the Western Standard is careful not to confirm Ross as the individual behind the @findlayfiles account. Its own close is that the information reviewed does not establish that he operates or is directly responsible for it.The Western Standard independently and proactively reached out to Ross with a series of questions related to said investigation. Namely, does he operate @thefindlayfiles? Has he supplied it with material? And if not, does he have any information on who might be involved?Ross — unlike Cinalli, Singh, and Breguet — did not respond.

EXCLUSIVE: Who is behind the Findlay Files?

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