Elections Canada has launched a criminal investigation into Juno News over the outlet's reporting on a Liberal candidate during the 2025 federal election.

In a letter to the outlet from the Commissioner of Canada Elections, Juno is alleged to have suggested then-candidate Thomas Keeper “had conducted himself in a manner that amounted to an offence pursuant to the Criminal Code.”

The letter asserted Juno's report “alleged that (Keeper) had committed sexual assault and common assault,” adding the allegations had “been denied as false.”

The investigation amounts to “an attempt to criminalize journalism and intimidate every reporter who digs into the government's candidates,” said Juno News co-founder Keean Bexte. 

Keeper, who was running as the Liberal candidate in the Calgary Confederation, resigned shortly after Bexte's report for Juno detailed several allegations of inappropriate behaviour from Keeper. 

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“He was talking about [how] whenever he wants to have sex with his wife he just forces her to do so,” recalled one source. “She complains about him forcing himself on her, she's like, 'it's horrible,'” another witness recounted.

“These allegations—among others detailing verbal abuse and disregard for consent—paint a picture of a candidate whose private conduct stands in stark contrast to the image he has projected on the campaign trail,” Bexte wrote in the March 28 Juno story.

CBC would later report that Keeper was dropped “due to the candidate's failure to disclose a 20-year-old domestic assault charge that was stayed six weeks after it was laid.”

The Independent Press Gallery condemned the Elections Canada criminal probe in a statement from president Sheila Gunn Reid, who noted that Bexte's reporting was “sourced, corroborated, and followed by the Liberal Party itself dropping Keeper from the ballot.”

Rebel News boss Ezra Levant also slammed the investigation in a post on social media.

“Elections Canada is a sleeping lifeguard when Chinese agents commit massive election fraud. They couldn’t care less,” he said. “But they have unlimited resources to harass independent journalists who criticize the Liberals.”

Press freedom, source protection and democracy itself are at stake, Bexte said. 

“If they can criminalize sourced reporting during an election, every tough story gets chilled,” he wrote. “We will fight to protect sources under the Journalistic Sources Protection Act.”