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.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
But this goes to the contradiction. She's saying one thing and you're saying another. I want to know who's right and who's wrong.
10:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Perhaps it's a question of which organization. As I said, when we were working on Ted Cruz we were working with SCL. She may have been unaware of the—-
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
When you worked on Ted Cruz's campaign you received no data from that campaign in the United States to your headquarters in Victoria; no data was transferred?
10:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I didn't say that, no. We received information from the campaign and from SCL for our work during that campaign.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
The chair of the committee, Damian Collins, in response to something that Ms. Kaiser says, says, “ On a point of clarification, you mentioned Chris Wylie worked for SCL Canada”.
Her answer was, “That was a name used for—I don't know him as an individual or the AIQ office. That was considered SCL Canada. Our company tended to have a business model where we would partner with another company, and that company would represent us as SCL Germany or SCL U.S.A. That was the model.”
His response was, “So as far as you're concerned, SCL Canada and AIQ are the same thing?”
Her response was, “ I believe so, yes”.
I think all of us have got this idea of you guys being SCL Canada. Everybody who knew you or contacted you, worked with you, considered you as SCL Canada. How would they have got that impression? Can you explain that?
10:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
The work we did for SCL came through SCL. I can't control how they speak about us within their company, but we've represented ourselves as AggregateIQ always.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
The chair's follow-up question goes, “Do you believe Chris Wylie was working for AIQ if he was also working for SCL Canada?”
Her answer was, “Yes, I believe that SCL Canada was just a glorified title, but he was full time engaged with AIQ.”
10:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
That's not accurate. We've always been 100% Canadian owned and operated.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
10:35 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The question of the integrity of the electoral system here and around the world to me is sacrosanct. I'm looking at the pitch that SCL and AggregateIQ made on the Trinidad and Tobago deal, Mr. Massingham. It was boasting of the ability to get de-anonymizing data. That included emails. That would be illegal, would it not, Mr. Massingham?
10:40 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
That would have been done through the party that tool would have been provided to.
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
That was SCL working with AggregateIQ in Trinidad.
In NIgeria, your friend company, SCL, working with you and Cambridge Analytica was also involved with a rogue Israeli ops team that included gathering private medical records and emails. You would be aware if you were involved in this that it would be illegal, right Mr. Massingham?
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
What Chris Wiley says is that people were getting very concerned, they were getting panicked phone calls. He said:
'My predecessor was found dead,' he said. 'One of my other co-workers had a massive head injury and is missing part of his skull. People do get hurt at this firm. They work with Israeli private intelligence firms who are willing to do essentially whatever if you pay them. This is why so many people' . . . 'are afraid to come forward to talk about the firm because it’s intimidating.'
Mr. Massingham, you're listed as the head of SCL Canada. Do you want to continue to tell us that you're not the head of SCL Canada?
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
The next step of questions of illegality is going back to BeLeave, which is on the same Google Drive as the Vote Leave, which is 625,000 pounds transferred and spent in the final six days. The British Parliament is investigating whether that was illegal.
Yet, when you were spoken to about this by Christopher Wiley, Jeff Silvester was saying it was “totally illegal”. He said, “they found it amusing”—that's you and your partner there—“You have to remember this is a company that’s gone around the world and undermined democratic institutions in all kinds of countries. They couldn’t care less if their work is compliant because they like to win.”
I put it to you that if you've been lying to our committee and that you can't even answer on your relationship with SCL Canada, you should not be involved in any way in elections because of your total disrespect that we see at our committee here. We might seem a like a quaint little operation, but we represent the people of Canada.
Mr. Massingham, when we ask direct questions about how you could have had a phone directed to you as the head of SCL Canada and you say you weren't aware of that, that just beggars belief. I can't see how anybody could give you a 625,000-pound campaign, let alone a 5 million-pound campaign, if you didn't even know that you had a phone listing you as the head of another company.
Don't you have anything to tell us, Mr. Massingham?
