Evidence of meeting #113 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 know.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Yes, it was a political customer relationship management tool.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
But would you, as the coder, not have thought differently that you were putting this kind of language in the code? You had no concern, or any query, as to why they were doing this, or what the point of it was.
9:55 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We understood that they were making these sorts of scores, and providing it to—
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
I understand that you understood they were making these scores.
You are a coder, am I not right?
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
So somebody gives you work as a professional person, and they're telling you to put this in there. Did it not strike you as odd that they were asking for this kind of stuff?
9:55 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
In terms of why they were coding personalities?
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Yes. If you look at some of the words, you see they're highly charged: neuroticism, conscientiousness, extroversion. That didn't really....
9:55 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Those were all based off of the “big five” personality profiling that's quite common in the personality space. When they told us that's what they were doing, I looked at what the big five personalities were. I think I took one of the online tests.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Mr. Saini, unfortunately we are over the time. We'll come back to you, though.
For the next three minutes, we have Mr. Angus.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
When he was here last time, Mr. Wylie was very forthcoming about the various companies that SCL comprises, SCL Elections and SCL Social. He's provided us documents, where your colleague, who's not here, as head of SCL Canada, says that you were set up to be SCL Canada.
What do you say?
9:55 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Whether that was SCL's intention at the time, it was not told to us. As I mentioned when I was here last time, or perhaps it was to the DCMS committee.... They did ask us at one point. This was well after we started working with them. They did ask us if we would create SCL Canada, and we declined. Why they would then put that on their website, I don't know.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
He says your claims are “completely false”. He said that under oath.
It seems to me really strange. We have a listing of documents with your colleague—who's not here—as head of SCL Canada, with a phone number for SCL Canada.
He says AIQ was set up because there were projects that were run by SCL and then Cambridge Analytica that needed a team of engineers to perform the work. You were set up to do that work as a franchise operation of SCL, is what he said. He said that to us under oath. Is that true?
10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We were never set up as a franchise. We certainly did work for SCL, and we certainly have software engineers on our staff to do coding and that sort of thing, but we were not—
10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
You're able to do outside work, but you were set up to be the franchise data engineers of SCL. That's what he said under oath. Brittany Kaiser in the U.K. said the same thing. Why would you tell us that...? You've never given us any clear picture of how you were set up with SCL. He said under oath that you were set up for this purpose.
10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I've given a very clear picture. We were an external contractor. We did work for SCL, but we are entirely separate. We are not a part of their company. We don't take direction from them on what we do. Insofar as we have a contract with them, we do the work in that contract, provide them with that work, and get paid for it, just like any other company.
Why they would put Zack's phone number on their website without letting us know, I don't know.
10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Okay. Then Christopher Wylie said under oath that what you and your colleague have told us—you've just repeated what you said the last time—was “completely false”. That would mean lying to our committee, so either Christopher Wylie is lying or I would suggest that we're not getting the full facts from you.
You are under oath as well, Mr. Silvester. He says it's completely false. Is he lying to us?
10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
In what regard? Is he lying about how we were set up?
10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Well, the fact is, he says that your position as not being set up to be the franchise operation to SCL Canada, that your claim that you were not “completely false”. He said that under oath. Was he lying to us?
10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
He also said under oath that it was true—and I'll quote him—that “AggregateIQ was not part of SCL”. He said that here under oath. His story seems to have changed over time.
10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Yes, he said you were set up as a franchise. You were set up specifically because they were running projects by SCL Elections group management and then through Cambridge Analytica, and we have the documents where we actually see the four hirings that are going to be taking place by AIQ under SCL Commercial, with Zack Massingham as head of SCL.
Why would the documents be there if this is not true?
10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We've never done any work for SCL Commercial. All the work we did for SCL was for SCL Elections. With respect to—
10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Well, SCL “Commercial-dash-Elections and Social management”, so let's keep—
10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I note as well, though, that his name was—