Evidence of meeting #101 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
So in the articles of incorporation that were set up by your company, there are only your two names that are there.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
You obviously had start-up costs. You were starting an office. You needed desks, chairs, computers, pencils, pens, coffee machine.
Where did that money come from?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
All of the work that we've done has then funded the future development of our company.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
When you had the articles of incorporation—I'm assuming that's when you started the company—where did the funding to start and set up that company come from?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Well, it wasn't much money to start because we did it from our homes. Zack worked from home. I worked from home.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
So the funding you received was from your own personal finances.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Okay.
I have it here, and I'm going to quote Mr. Wylie in his testimony before the U.K.'s digital, culture, media and sport committee. He testified that AggregateIQ was set up as a separate, Canadian legal entity so that Canadians who were not willing to move to the U.K. would be able to work on SCL products.
He went on to confirm that it was in essence a shell company or franchise, that you were assigned to the SCL group and that you would be known as SCL Canada.
Is this true or not?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
You never had a conversation with Mr. Wylie where he told you that he was working for an entity in England and was reaching out to you to find out if there was anybody you knew who could do the work.
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Mr. Wylie and I did have a conversation when he started working for SCL...or not a conversation, rather he sent me an email. In that email, he introduced his new employer to me and I read the pamphlet. But in terms of later, when he introduced me to his employer, we didn't have a conversation about setting us up as a shell corporation or however you described it.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Because there was some hesitancy, according to his report, of you guys moving to England to work there—because of what he quotes as you both being recently married, you had young kids, you had bought a home—it would have been easier for you guys to have a shop in Victoria and work transatlantically.
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
That's not an accurate representation of how it happened.
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Ripon is a project of SCL. A part of that project was that they contracted to us to create a political customer relationship management tool. As I've mentioned, it's no different than Liberalist or C-Vote or the NDP's Populus tool.
They wanted us to build this tool for them so that they could use it in the American elections.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
So you built this software for them—proprietary software, I'm assuming.
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
At the conclusion of the contract and having been paid, they own that project.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Is that customary in your line of work? You develop a software that's proprietary. You put your efforts into making this. It becomes intellectual property.
Why would somebody else want it?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
They paid you to make it, so that goes to them. Now it's up to them.
You're talking about SCL.