Information & Ethics Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Zackary Massingham]

Yep.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay.

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Next up, for five minutes, is Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

I will try to get back to a more positive note.

Are your clients happy with the services you provide?

[Jeff Silvester]

With respect to the Brexit campaign, I think mostly, yes. Most of our clients are satisfied, but not all of them.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

People seem to appreciate the speed with which your company provides its services. You are asked to place ads on Facebook, for instance.

Are you involved in developing ads or do you simply receive them and post them on Facebook? Does your team prepare the ads?

[Jeff Silvester]

Clients will come to us with their vision, their message, and the things they want to talk about. They'll oftentimes have images to go with it. We take their words and try to shrink them down into something that will fit online. The content really comes from the client, and we just help craft that into something that will fit in an online ad.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

If your client provides an ad that seems to be fake news, do you post it without a critical look, simply because you are paid to do so?

[Jeff Silvester]

No, and that has not happened in the course of us providing services either.

The information that clients provide to us is typically very well aligned to exactly what they're doing in their campaign, whether it be their vision, their ideas for the future, or the things they care about. These are the sorts of things that clients provide us with typically.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

In your experience with Brexit, did the companies you dealt with declare the amounts they paid you for the election campaign or was it really outside their election campaign?

[Jeff Silvester]

Sorry, I don't understand the question. Did they provide the amounts of the spending, or are we talking about the content of the ads?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

I am talking about the amounts you were paid for the services you provided during the election campaign. You are a Canadian company that provided services in another country, in the United Kingdom. Were the amounts you received during the Brexit election campaign declared in the United Kingdom? In other words, did your clients declare the amounts you were paid for your services or was that omitted?

[Jeff Silvester]

Yes. All of the information on all of the work we did in the U.K. was publicly reported.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Monsieur Gourde.

Next up, for five minutes, is Mr. Baylis.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

I'm going to follow up on the point my colleague just raised here. He received a text just now refuting what you said. Specifically, the U.K. Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, says that AIQ refused to answer her specific questions relating to data usage during the referendum campaign. It's to the point that the U.K. is considering taking further legal action to secure the information she needs.

This is in real time. It just happened based on what you said.

Who's not telling us the truth, you or her? It's a straight question now. Who's not telling us the truth?

You just led us to believe that you got two letters and answered them fully. She's saying that is not the case, to the point that they're looking at taking legal action.

[Jeff Silvester]

If she has additional questions, I'm hopeful that she'll follow up with us.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

She does not say that. She said that you refused to answer, so she doesn't have additional ones; she has the same ones that you refused to answer.

Is she not telling us the truth, or are you, Mr. Silvester, not telling us the truth?

[Jeff Silvester]

I've told you exactly what we have done, and I can only speak to—

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I'm asking you a straightforward question. This is directly refuted. Who's not telling us the truth here?

[Jeff Silvester]

I've been 100% honest in all of my answers.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I will repeat it.

She is happy to say that AIQ has refused to answer her specific questions.

You've just said again that you did answer them all. Did you answer them?

[Jeff Silvester]

We have provided answers to all of the questions she provided and have offered to provide any clarification, in our letters to her.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Explain to me how we got this information in real time, then.

[Jeff Silvester]

I expect—