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.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
So none of you saw any of these ads that were supposedly being run to help you get elected in your ridings?
Liberal
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It seems the new point of interest is whether there were actually any ads and whether the Conservative Party got any value for the money it gave to Retail Media. I had no idea we were going to be wondering whether ads actually ran, but I guess we'll go with that one too.
Mr. Halicki, were the ads that you ran—allegedly, because we now don't know whether ads ran—and that you transferred money to the Conservative Party to purchase on your behalf, aimed at people like you? Were they hoping to get you to vote Conservative?
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Do you think you needed to see an ad that read “Vote Conservative” in order to get you to vote Conservative?
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I'm sorry; that's the question I was asking. And your campaign team probably didn't need to see those ads either.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
You probably wanted them to help you knock on doors, get voter ID, all those sorts of things.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
So you really weren't hoping they were listening to the radio to see how many times your radio ad ran, or your television ad.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I didn't think so. Mine didn't either, but I had some dynamite TV commercials. I was really happy with them.
One of the things that are being brought forward by some of the members of the jury is that somehow this has been flagged by Elections Canada. Flagged! Oh my, it's been flagged!
Well, do you know what? Do you know how Elections Canada found out about this? We told them. You in fact told them, because you included that in your election return, didn't you, with an invoice? Didn't you?
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
You did.
And when they didn't provide a refund to you—as they should have, because they provided one to the NDP on the same practice, they provided one to the Bloc on the same practice, they provided one to the Liberals on the same practice.... When they didn't do it, when they singled out the Conservative Party and said, “We're going to pay everybody else who did this, but not you”, we initiated; we went after them and asked, “Why are you singling out the Conservative Party? Why us?”
We cited examples yesterday: with Olivia Chow, who did the same thing, and Mr. Hubbard, the same thing, and got a rebate. Mr. Martin thinks that's immoral. It's suddenly immorality; it's bilking people. My goodness.
Did you know that the Conservative Party actually initiated this? You probably wondered why your riding association hadn't received its rebate, didn't you? Is that right?
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Other campaigns had done the same thing, hadn't they? And you've seen the examples we've cited. You've heard the examples, in which they've actually paid other parties that have done the same thing, haven't you?
