Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 11th, 2018

[Ryan O'Connor]

I'd have to review the official request.

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

Okay.

What strikes me, and I just want to find out.... Did Olivia run this?

[Ryan O'Connor]

Olivia was an individual the call centre utilized in the text messages—

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

Is Olivia a real person?

[Ryan O'Connor]

I can't speak to who Olivia is. That was the vendor's name of the individual who was sending out the text messages and delivering the phone calls.

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

Can you verify that Olivia exists? Is Olivia a real person, or just a name?

[Ryan O'Connor]

I can't speak to who Olivia is at the call centre. That's information with our vendor.

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

When I do phone calling and when my volunteers phone call, we are obligated by law to identify who we are and whom we're representing, and yet I hear people saying, “I just got this text from Ontario Proud. How did this hateful organization get my number? They're posting that it was Olivia.”

If Olivia doesn't exist, then would you not agree that what you were doing was sending false information to people, claiming to be somebody you weren't?

[Ryan O'Connor]

That's not the case whatsoever. We had—

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

Would you be able to prove...? Would you be able to give us...? Olivia sent a million texts. Either Olivia exists, or she's a front that you created. If it's that, then you're misrepresenting your political work.

You were doing a massive call-out in the final five days of the campaign. That is political intervention in a provincial campaign that's pretty much unprecedented. There were 2.5 million calls put out by a person called Olivia. I just want to know if Olivia really exists. Who decided that it would be Olivia, as opposed to Jeff? “Hi, it's Jeff Ballingall, from Ontario Proud. I want to know whom you're voting for.”

Would you at least agree, if we suggested to the CRTC that there should be the same requirements on third parties, that you would have to identify who you are and whom you're representing when you're texting and phoning? Would that be too onerous for you?

[Ryan O'Connor]

In all of the text messages that were sent out, Mr. Angus, Ontario Proud was identified. These were not anonymous text messages. The telephone calls were not anonymous—

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

If Olivia doesn't exist, then that's an anonymous text message. You sent that out in the final five days of the campaign.

[Ryan O'Connor]

The vendor used that name. They used this: “It's Olivia, from Ontario Proud.“

It was our campaign. We had sent text messages out. We had identified clearly that it was Ontario Proud.

To answer your question, Mr. Angus—

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

Where did you get all of these numbers?

I have to say, I work very hard in my riding, and getting cell numbers is really difficult, yet you had 2.5 million cell numbers. Where did you get those?

[Ryan O'Connor]

I want to be clear. The provincial NDP ran an almost identical text message campaign.

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

Yes, but the NDP is a legitimate political party. You're supposed to be a disinterested third party, with somebody named Olivia.

If the Liberals or the Conservatives send me messages, I know where I can track them. They have a database.

Where did you get your database?

[Ryan O'Connor]

Are you saying that third parties that participate in political discourse are illegitimate?

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

Where did you get those cell numbers?

[Ryan O'Connor]

They came from the vendor.

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

They came from the vendor. Would they have come from the vendor working for another political party?

[Ryan O'Connor]

I can't speak to where the vendor obtains its information. I'm not going to speak on its behalf—

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

Those 2.5 million numbers.... Do you maintain that? Do you still have that?

[Ryan O'Connor]

No, that's from the vendor. We have aggregated data.

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

You have aggregated data. Okay, thank you.

I'm interested in, again, how you're set up. You talk about other third parties. There are environmental and political groups, and they're always identified as political groups, but when Ontario Proud was set up, it was like, “Hey, check out the colours of fall. If you like the colours of fall, click Ontario Proud.” Then it's a campaign of engaging with people who aren't engaged politically.

You send them some nice things about mothers and the fall colours, and then you run headlines like “Scumbag Kathleen Wynne”. That is a kind of misinformation tactic—presenting yourself as just interested in all things Ontario, and then you run this campaign where they say, “That ugly nasty greedy no good money grubbing snot faced witch”; “The ugliest human dyke who ever existed”; and “I'm surprised that no one has shot her but maybe the bullets cost to much”.

When I read that, it really fits into what we heard about Facebook: If something is so far over the line, it gets pulled, but if it gets right up to the line of really aggressive, misogynist hate stuff, it actually peaks, in terms of likes. You can claim that you got more likes than the Toronto Star and the Globe.

Is that the technique, to push it right up to the line, saying, “I'm surprised nobody shot her,” to get the likes to drive your agenda? Is that how you work your algorithm?

[Ryan O'Connor]

I don't really know what you're getting at. You've quoted a comment—