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.
Liberal
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
How did they know to ask us to do work for them?
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Mr. Massingham reached out to them there.
Who told you to coordinate? You said someone told you to get a hold of Veterans for Britain.
Who told you to do that?
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
To be fair, I don't know that this is exactly the case. As I said, I went through the email communication to try to find the answers to your questions, and I provided what I found.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You have a customer who shows up and spends £600,000, and you have no idea how they know about you, how they showed up—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
—and you do the work not knowing if you're going to get paid by Vote Leave.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Well, we knew once we got the money that it was—
Liberal
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
No. We didn't know them from anything.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
When they asked you to do the work, did they tell you that Vote Leave was going to pay for them?
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
They told us they got a donation. They didn't originally tell us the source.
Liberal
Liberal
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
But then it was transferred directly to us when we gave them the invoice, or—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I submit to you, Mr. Silvester, that you and Mr. Massingham specifically were coordinating this, and the fact that he did it when he was in the United Kingdom, irrespective of what you're saying about your not being subject to the jurisdictions of their offices and their laws, and you were coordinating with them in the United Kingdom, specifically Mr. Massingham, you were breaking their laws. When you were doing it in Canada you were, again, aiding and abetting in a crime. You helped by coordinating this effort, and that is illegal in the United Kingdom. You aided and abetted that crime. You happened to be sitting here in Canada, and that may or may not protect you. I don't know; I'm not a lawyer, but Mr. Massingham was in the U.K. when he was doing it. That makes him subject to their laws.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
With respect to crimes, no, I don't believe any crimes have occurred in this regard. With respect to our aiding and abetting, no, we have not aided and abetted anyone to our knowledge, because it requires a knowledge of it. If someone else were doing some coordination through the campaign that we were unaware of, if Mr. Gettleson was sharing information, I don't know.