Information & Ethics Committee on April 24th, 2018

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.

On the agenda

Breach of personal information involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

MPs speaking

Bob Zimmer

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith

Also speaking

Zackary Massingham Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

9:30 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

Yes. They paid us to make it, we made it, and then we gave it to them.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

You've also done work in foreign countries.

Is that true?

9:30 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

That's correct.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

From whatever reading I've done, you've done work in Nigeria, Trinidad, and Kenya.

Is that true?

9:30 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

We've never done any work in Kenya.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

So it's Nigeria and Trinidad.

9:30 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

We have done some work in Nigeria, and we have done some work—

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

What work did you do in Nigeria, and who did you do it for?

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

We did some work for SCL to place online ads.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

For which political party?

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

It was an independent promoter—an independent expenditure sort of thing—in support of Goodluck Jonathan.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Goodluck Jonathan, okay.

In front of the committee in the U.K., Mr. Wylie said that the video that AIQ distributed in Nigeria, with the sole intent of intimidating voters, "included content where people were being dismembered, where people were having their throats cuts and bled to death in a ditch. They were being burned alive. There was incredibly anti-Islamic, threatening messages portraying Muslims as violent."

Who did that?

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

The video was given to us, but we were not willing to distribute it or run any ads to it or anything like that.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Who distributed it?

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

To our knowledge, no one.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

But he said that it's been distributed.

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

I don't know why Mr. Wylie said that. Mr. Wylie was not involved. He was gone from SC by that time, so I don't know how he'd have knowledge of that.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

So you were given this video and it was never used.

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

We were given the video, and, no, we didn't run any ads to it or anything like that. And we informed the client that we were unwilling to do that.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Okay.

You did some work in Trinidad.

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

Correct.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Who offered that work to you?

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

That was the first work we did with SCL.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Okay, so SCL got the contract from Trinidad—

9:35 a.m.

Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ

Jeff Silvester

Correct.