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.
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
The Brexit campaign was one of the largest campaigns we've worked on, yes.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Were Massingham and you located in the U.K. during the Brexit referendum?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Yeah, we had a number of staff who would go there from time to time.
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I never went, but Mr. Massingham did, yes.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Mr. Massingham was there, so the work for the Brexit campaign was in fact being done in the U.K., to a large degree.
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
No. Mr. Massingham would just get the information and send it back to the people in Canada, who would do the work at our offices.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
I've read the Slack messages. Mr. Massingham was doing work for the Brexit campaign, and he was in the U.K. Is that fair to say?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I wouldn't say he's doing work. He's communicating these meetings. He's getting information and sharing it back with our staff. It's a question of whether meetings are work, or collecting information and relaying it back to us is work. We could talk about that all day, I suppose.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Well, in an advertising campaign, talking about the advertising and accounts of the advertising sounds like work.
What was on the BeLeave Google drive that Massingham had access to?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
As I understand it, there were pictures and graphics that they'd used in previous efforts.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Was it not odd to you or to Mr. Massingham that BeLeave officials had ready access to that drive?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
At the time we weren't aware that Vote Leave officials may or may not have had access to it, and I don't know whether they did or didn't. Mr. Grimes sent us a link with information for their advertising campaign, and we clicked the link and downloaded that information.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
In his last attendance, Mr. Massingham noted that he was aware that had further moneys been spent under Vote Leave and not the BeLeave campaign, they would have gone over the election finance limit. How were you aware of that at the time?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Well, we knew what the election finance limits were for both official campaigns.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Everything that Vote Leave had spent to date? You only knew what it had spent with you. That wasn't anywhere near the cap. How did you know it was up near the cap?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We knew what our advertising budget was. When you approach the end of a campaign and you're approaching the end of your advertising budget—
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
But your advertising budget was not close to the $7 million pound cap, right?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I don't know personally that it was reaching the cap. I know that it was reaching the end of its advertising limit.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
That's interesting, because at the outset of your statement today you said that you were completely aware of everything. You're the COO, that you know everything do with AIQ, and Mr. Massingham need not attend before us.
But that's not really the case if you can't answer certain questions.
Have you read all the Slack messages that were sent to us?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
That's interesting, again. Mr. Massingham was actually sending and receiving those Slack messages.
At one point, he indicated that the timing was useful, because the softer stuff for the BeLeave campaign played really well at a certain time, and was different from the hard stuff, presumably the Vote Leave campaign stuff.
Is that what he was getting at?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I don't know what he was getting at, at that point.