Information & Ethics Committee on Sept. 27th, 2018

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Remember you're under oath, because this is a big issue. If two independent reports said you didn't place any ads and you tell our committee you did place ads, it's hard to believe you over two independent commissions that were not working together that said BeLeave did not place any ads, so what did you do with the million dollars Canadian that you were paid for six days' work?

[Zackary Massingham]

As I told you, we placed those ads for BeLeave and the BeLeave ad account.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, because in the drive, there were ad mock-ups, so you had set up ad mock-ups, but they said that there were no ads actually run.

In the Slack logs, where you tell Mr. Grimes—who is the 22-year-old student who suddenly has a million dollars Canadian to spend—that he's on track to spend $300,000, what were you spending that $300,000 on?

[Zackary Massingham]

On his Facebook ad.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, and you said, “Did you need me to grab some money for you?”

What was your role in moving this money?

[Zackary Massingham]

I believe that in the chat log you're referring to, Darren was asking if it would be possible that he'd redirect some of the money that had gone to us back to him for other campaign purposes. That never actually happened.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Where did that $300,000 that you were going to grab for him.... Where were you going to grab that money from?

[Zackary Massingham]

That was money that had already been sent directly to us.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

From whom?

[Zackary Massingham]

Vote Leave.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

From Vote Leave, yes, because he says that's fine and that Victoria is sorting this out—Victoria Woodcock.

What the electoral commission and the privacy commission in the U.K. found was that there was a breach of British electoral law based on a plan to circumvent the finance limits between BeLeave and Vote Leave, and between those two is your organization, which is the conduit for that money. Do you accept the findings that your work was involved in breaking British electoral law and undermining the legitimacy of the Brexit vote?

[Zackary Massingham]

We never saw any evidence of coordination while we were there conducting work for either organization. In Facebook's own report, they have shown that BeLeave placed those ads, so I'm very confused as to how things are being interpreted now.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm very confused too. You say you saw no evidence of coordination, and Mr. Silvester says almost to a T what you just said, “We never saw any evidence of coordination.”

You guys come out of nowhere and you get a million dollars from BeLeave. You get $5 million Canadian from Vote Leave. You're the conduit in a campaign that's been found guilty of breaching electoral laws. You're asking, “Should I get money for you?” and you say you see no coordination at all?

How do you get into this business if you don't do due diligence? Otherwise, you're getting played a total sap here. How can you tell us that you didn't see that coordination?

[Zackary Massingham]

We do do our due diligence, and we saw no evidence of coordination between those campaigns.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay. One of the documents we have is the picture that was leaked by Sanni. It's you at the Vote Leave headquarters with Steve Parkinson of Vote Leave, and there's the Thames and Westminster in the background. That's also where the campaign for BeLeave was, right?

[Zackary Massingham]

I'm not sure where the campaign for BeLeave was.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You don't know where the campaign for BeLeave was.

[Zackary Massingham]

I'm not sure they had an office. They were a small organization.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Weren't they in the same building?

[Zackary Massingham]

I don't know.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Let's just go back over this again.

Christopher Wylie said that you were set up as “a proxy money-laundering vehicle” between these two campaigns. You say you don't know where their organization headquarters was or if it even had one. You are coordinating money between the two, and they've been found guilty of setting up a plan to circumvent the electoral laws; they said you spent no money on ads, and you're telling us you did.

Credibly, if you're going to do international work, how did you get set up to play the patsy, unless you were involved?

[Zackary Massingham]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand the question—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You don't understand my question? How is it possible that this campaign was found guilty of breaching electoral finance laws? Chris Wylie said that you were set up as the money-laundering vehicle. You're coordinating between two campaigns. There's money flowing back and forth. You say that you spent that money on ads. Two independent reports find that you did not spend on any ads.

If you're the honest guy in all of this, how did you get these contracts? How do you get to do all this international work if you're so easy to play the patsy here?

[Zackary Massingham]

I'll say it again. We saw no evidence of any coordination between those campaigns. We placed those ads—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

But the two commissioned reports found evidence of collusion, and it goes back to you. How did you not see that?