Evidence of meeting #117 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 vote.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Did you have any other related email address to discuss this BeLeave campaign?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you.
I'd like to get an understanding of how you invoiced and created insertion orders for the BeLeave campaign and the lead-up to the Brexit vote in 2016, since you have provided us with a number of invoices and insertion orders that I have with me today.
Can you tell me how the invoicing and insertion process worked with the BeLeave campaign, and specifically what directions you were given on how and where this was documented, and how the services were delivered?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
BeLeave let us know that they had received a donation and that they would like to engage us and our services. We had a discussion with Mr. Grimes about what he would like to accomplish with the money he had been given: the types of messaging he would like to run, various creatives, what his thoughts were on tone, style and audience, different channels he might like to use, and what he might want to do as a sort of get-out-and-vote effort on the day of the vote.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Why would you have multiple insertion orders for the same time period? I'm talking specifically about June 14 to 23, 2016.
11:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
As I said at the beginning of that answer, they were tied to the donations that he received, so as he received additional money, additional insertion orders were created that we might use as a sub-record of that transaction.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Didn't it seem odd to you that a campaign wouldn't have an overall budget for digital advertising? Did it not raise any flags that they were wiring you larger and larger amounts without explanation of where that came from?
11:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
No. Fundraising in campaigns tends to go that way.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Really?
You provided this committee with copies of the invoices, as we have discussed. These were copies of the original invoices. Is that correct?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Your name is on them, so I'm hoping that you know about them.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Can you explain to this committee why there's an invoice with your signature on it dated April 30, 2018 for over $500,000 U.S., nearly two years after the Brexit vote and months after this and other similar committees were struck across the globe?
11:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
It's a Word document, and the template we use auto-populates the date, so as they were submitted, I imagine they were opened to verify the place where it was and then submitted to you, and that would have re-updated that date.
11:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
They were Word documents that were sent to you. We opened them to review that this is what we had sent the client, and then, as they were opened, they must have updated themselves.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I'm still surprised to see that one is 2018 and the rest are 2016, so I don't believe we received the originals. I'd love to have an explanation.
11:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
I think I just gave you one. If they were PDFs, I'm sure we wouldn't have this problem.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer
What we're going to do is give three minutes to Mr. Angus. He is going to have the last question of this round. We'll go through another round until our 15-minute timeline.
Go ahead, Mr. Angus, for three minutes.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Massingham.
The last time you were here, we spent a lot of time trying to clarify why you were listed as the head of SCL Canada, trying to track down why you had a phone for SCL Canada. You explained to us that AIQ is an independent Canadian entity. Is that correct?
11:55 a.m.
NDP