Evidence of meeting #48 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was campaign.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:45 a.m.
As an Individual
If I may, you may recall that the campaign was in two parts and there was a hiatus over the Christmas period.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
10:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I'm sorry, I don't have the wire transfer information with me right now. It's with Elections Canada.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
And you did receive the payment from the Conservative fund, from the central party, right?
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
I guess I'll open this up to whoever chooses to answer it. Who selected the individual ridings?
10:45 a.m.
As an Individual
The ridings were selected by Mike Donison once his dealings with those individual or official agents--
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Okay, and when were they selected? Do you remember the timeframe?
10:45 a.m.
As an Individual
Perhaps I can add to that. From checking the records, I believe the writ was issued on November 29. We had to have all our buys completed for the broadcast arbiter...I believe the date was December 9. So it would have been sometime between November 29 and December 9.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Again, this is all in the public record, but there are some exchanges between the Conservative Party officials, an e-mail from Mr. Donison. I quote:
Obviously, the initial media buy decisions made right at the beginning of the campaign have determined which candidates are on your...
--and this is Retail Media's list of participants--
However, it is those very candidates, given that they are more targeted that expect to spend their limits.
The e-mail goes on to state that a decision was made to delay the broadcast until the following Monday, which was three days after the December 15 e-mail from Mr. Donison, to come up with an alternate list of participants.
Can you confirm the final list of candidates who participated in the two relevant media buys, when that was finalized?
10:50 a.m.
Liberal
10:50 a.m.
As an Individual
It would have been probably mid-December. As well, our radio campaign was in January and there were candidates participating in that. So I think it was still being determined.
10:50 a.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Again, I'm going to ask Mr. Kumpf, but any of you who are comfortable please respond to this. Did it raise any flags with you? Did you ever say to the Conservative Party, “You should check this out with Elections Canada” or “We have some concerns about this”?
10:50 a.m.
As an Individual
Perhaps I should handle this one.
Indeed, we did. There were two conference calls in early December. We asked for confirmation, clearly, that the budgets provided to us by the party were within the election limits. As I said, we're not experts in that regard, so we did ask for confirmation.
Now, participating in those conference calls, which I did and Andrew did, were members of the party, but their legal counsel as well. So this may come up with the information that the chairman had indicated, because the legal counsel participated in those calls. But we did indeed ask. We sought and received confirmation that the budgets were within the allowable limit.
10:50 a.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
But this was the Conservative Party of Canada and its legal counsel, not Elections Canada. At any point did the Conservative Party say, “We have checked with Elections Canada”?