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.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
In other words, you still deny that there was any knowledge about the source of the data that you were working with, whether it was raw data or otherwise.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Mr. Massingham, can you tell us about the contract that you entered into with a U.K. company called Hanbury and Mr. Ameet Gill to represent AIQ's interests in the United Kingdom in 2017?
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
I think that was just a meeting for a small consulting project. I'm not sure anything really came of it.
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
I believe so, yes. We didn't do much work.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Massingham, for joining us. We were sorry you didn't join us last time. I hope you're feeling better.
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
One of the questions we were trying to figure out with the BeLeave campaign was you were paid basically about a million dollars Canadian for about six days' work, and there was very little data gathered in that time. Mr. Silvester explained that your role with the project wasn't to collect data but to place ads.
Was that the role that you had with BeLeave?
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
That's correct. Any pledges they might have received were a happy extra for them.
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Okay.
In those six days, June 16 to June 23, 2016, you were placing ads for the BeLeave campaign, and that's where the money went?
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
In those six days, June 16 to June 23, 2016, you were placing ads for the BeLeave campaign, and that's where the money went?
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office reports that “BeLeave did not...run any ads, albeit their electoral returns indicates they committed expenditure to this”, and the privacy commissioner also found that the BeLeave campaign didn't run any ads.
What were you doing if you weren't running ads?
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
I'm sorry; we were showing ads on Facebook, on BeLeave's ads account. I'm confused by the statement there that—
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Did you read the findings of the U.K. information commissioner's and the electoral commissioner's report on your work?
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
Jeff has been handling that particular matter, but what—
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
You're the CEO and you didn't read it? It says you didn't place any ads. I'm confused. You got paid a million dollars. If you didn't place ads, where did the money go?
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
I'm telling you here today that we did place ads and those ads were placed in BeLeave's ad account and their budget was spent on their ads.
11:15 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Okay.
You say that the information commissioner's report and the electoral commissioner's report is wrong.
11:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ
Perhaps it's simply misinterpreted.
