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.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
He would like to have been here, but unfortunately, as I mentioned—
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Do you believe the following statement:
We have no reason to believe that there was any content shared between the campaigns we worked for, nor did we see any evidence of coordination.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
The monies, the donation amounts moving back and forth, the fact that there was access to the drive, the fact that the Vote Leave officials had, in fact, established BeLeave's constitution, none of this indicated a coordination to you or raise red flags?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
With respect to the donation, as I mentioned in my opening statement, that was entirely allowed under U.K. electoral law.
With respect to the drive or constitution, we were unaware of that. It's only now that we're seeing any information about that particular bit.
Whether it is or is not allowed, I'm not the expert on that.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
One of the donors is blacked out in the messages we received. It was for £50,000. The name started with A.
Is that Arron Banks?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I don't have the exact name here, but I know it wasn't Mr. Banks.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I can check if I can provide you with that name.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
You certainly have to provide us with that name. I'm asking you to provide us with that name.
9:25 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I can see what I can do with respect to my confidentiality obligations, and see if I can get you that information.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
You may want to consult with your lawyers, and understand that no confidential allegations mean that you don't have to provide information requested by this committee, okay?
In total, I think you ran 1,390 ads on behalf of the pages linked to the referendum campaign between February 2016 and June 23, inclusive. That's directly from Facebook, so you ran 1,400 ads for the referendum.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Through Facebook for the various referendum campaigns.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
In the Slack messages, there's no indication of how money is to be spent; how many ads were to be run; how much money is to be put into the ads to be run. Ostensibly, you provided us with all the Slack messages between BeLeave and Mr. Massingham.
Why would I have not seen how almost £700,000 would have been spent? How many ads should have be run? How much money should have been delivered through each ad?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
A great amount of the conversation was done verbally. In one of the email messages Zack talks about having a call with Darren. That's when he would have gotten that information, and relayed it back.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
The confirmation of £675,000 in spending would probably have been done verbally?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Very convenient.
Who is the administrator on the Facebook accounts? You? Mr. Massingham? Who were the administrators?