Breaking: Sponsorship Scandal 2.0

[Gone_Fishin]

Here we go again. Sponsorship Scandal 2.0.

Liberals enriching Trudeau's close friend with taxpayers' money to run the Liberals' election campaigns.

Liberal MPs’ budgets pay same firms that help run party’s digital campaigns



Trudeau embraces his close, enriched friend Tom Pitfield


Liberal MPs have been using parliamentary funds to pay for services from companies that provide two of the governing party’s most important digital campaign operations, and that also run its powerful voter-contact database.

An examination of expenses filed in the House of Commons shows 149 Liberal MPs, or 97 per cent of the caucus, made payments out of their office budgets to Data Sciences Inc., founded by a close friend of Justin Trudeau.

And 152 Liberal MPs made payments to NGP VAN, a political-campaign software used by the U.S. Democratic Party and licensed by the Liberals to run their Liberalist database.

snip

Data Sciences Inc is owned by Tom Pitfield, a childhood friend of Mr. Trudeau who ran the Liberals’ digital operations in the 2015 and 2019 elections. He is expected to take on the same role in the next general election.

Mr. Pitfield’s company is known for using algorithms to target and swiftly adjust digital advertising during elections.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter said the modified NGP VAN tracks constituency casework, correspondence and identifies the occupations of constituents.

However, Mr. Easter said MPs are instructed by the party to be careful in how they handle this system, to avoid misusing information for partisan and electoral gain.

“There is a constituency program that really does help with constituency work. It is a good system, so you can track farmers or fishermen if you want feedback on legislation,” he said. “There is a political component and there is a firewall between the two, so you can’t basically use constituency side for your political side.”

Mr. Easter was unable to explain what Data Sciences did for his office in managing social media.

“I do my own,” he said. “I quite honestly don’t know what [Data Sciences] does,” he added.

Liberal MP John McKay also said he had no idea why money from his office budget was going to Mr. Pitfield’s company.

“I haven’t got a clue,” he said. “I can’t explain it. I vaguely recall once a year we write a cheque and it’s always been explained that it is within the ethical guidelines, so we all kind of sign up for it and it goes into some oblivion.”

snip

Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett said taxpayers’ money should not be going to digital companies that also work for the Liberal Party.

“So, we have a situation where taxpayers dollars are being used to effectively subsidize the political digital operations of the Liberal Party of Canada,” he said. “These are taxpayer office budgets paying subscription fees for running the Liberal Party’s ‘black ops’ and their election software.”

Mr. Barrett said he does not believe the Liberals when they say there is a firewall to guard against constituency information being used to help them politically.

snip

Mr. Pitfield’s wife, Anna Gainey, was the president of the Liberal Party, and is also close to the Trudeau family. The Pitfields and the Trudeaus vacationed together at the Aga Khan’s resort in the Bahamas over the Christmas holidays in 2016. The Ethics Commissioner ruled a year later that Mr. Trudeau had violated conflict-of-interest rules by accepting the free holiday.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politic ... he-partys/

[common_sense_guy]

I hate the Liberals as much as any other person here but could you explain where the conflict of interest is? Are they not allowed to hire a company to do this work? Or is it they're not allowed to use taxpayers money?
Like I said I think the Liberals are Crooks but I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon just because I hate them without knowing the facts
Is it unethical or illegal what they are doing that you are referring to. Thanks .

[bob vernon]

*removed*

[Hurtlander]

I hate the Liberals as much as any other person here but could you explain where the conflict of interest ?

Hmmm.... Something like this should be paid for directly by the Liberal Party of Canada through member donations, not from taxpayers money that’s supposed to cover MP’s office expenses.

[The Green Barbarian]

Hmmm.... Something like this should be paid for directly by the Liberal Party of Canada through member donations, not from taxpayers money that’s supposed to cover MP’s office expenses.

Nailed it!

[blueliner]

I hate the Liberals as much as any other person here but could you explain where the conflict of interest ?

Hmmm.... Something like this should be paid for directly by the Liberal Party of Canada through member donations, not from taxpayers money that’s supposed to cover MP’s office expenses.

Bingo , but as we all know , that's not the way that Slimy Justin Trudeau and his Liberals work . Just like they use our hard earn tax $$ to bail out and control the media.

[common_sense_guy]

I don't really feel I got an answer yet. All the responses to my question said that the Liberal Party SHOULD be paying it from their donations not the taxpayer. So then is it illegal or just unethical. I don't know what the rules are and I'm hoping one of you can enlighten me

[foenix]

I hate the Liberals as much as any other person here but could you explain where the conflict of interest ?

Hmmm.... Something like this should be paid for directly by the Liberal Party of Canada through member donations, not from taxpayers money that’s supposed to cover MP’s office expenses.

Do we know that the secretive and hypocritical CPCs' aren't doing the same thing?.....and even if the funding source is different, voter contact lists are unethical, imo....but then again, that wouldn't stop politicians from using them, never mind where the money is coming from.

They’re spying on you: how party databases put your privacy at risk

Suppose I told you that there is a country where political parties build secret databases on voters and profile them according to their political views. Its citizens have no right to see, correct or remove the data collected. The data is shared with a large number of party workers and volunteers, who use it to contact voters by phone, e-mail, direct mail or canvassing to determine whether and how they intend to vote.

Sounds like an authoritarian state, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s pretty much the way that Canada’s main political parties operate now.

In this election, each of the big three federal parties is running its own web-based “voter relationship management system”. The oldest is the Conservative Information Management System (CIMS). The Liberals recently built a new version of Liberalist, based on the U.S. Democratic Party’s Voter Activation Network. And the NDP has replaced the clunky old NDP Vote system with something called Populus.........

The parties with deeper pockets — the Conservative party, particularly — may also add data obtained from other sources: the census, social media and, in some cases, data purchased from commercial geo-demographic companies such as Environics. More and more, these databases include information on specific political issues and trends............

What they don’t talk about is how far out of mainstream democratic practice these databases really are. In most other democracies, they would be illegal.

In Europe, for instance, political parties are permitted only to process personal data on their own members, or on those with whom they have regular contact. Information on political opinions and affiliations is considered highly sensitive there, and can only be collected with the express consent of the individual. The campaigning practices seen in Canada and the United States are typically regarded as intrusive and contrary to European political culture.

As a result of Canada’s complex constitutional framework — and overall political reluctance — these systems are pretty much exempted from privacy laws here. So the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has no oversight authority to receive complaints about party political databases, or to investigate and audit.

And here’s what most Canadians don’t realize: as a citizen and a voter, you have no legal right to learn what information a party database has collected about you, or to access and correct that information. You have no legal right to remove yourself from a party database, or to restrict the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information.

And for the most part, parties have no legal obligations to keep that information secure, to retain it only for as long as is necessary, or to control who has access to it.

https://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/01/theyre- ... y-at-risk/

[Gone_Fishin]

I don't really feel I got an answer yet. All the responses to my question said that the Liberal Party SHOULD be paying it from their donations not the taxpayer. So then is it illegal or just unethical. I don't know what the rules are and I'm hoping one of you can enlighten me

It's illegal. Federal political parties cannot divert constituency (ie taxpayers') money for their campaigns.

Only individuals are allowed to donate to federal parties, up to $1,650 a year. There is also a mechanism for reimbursement of a portion of bona fide election writ period expenses during the course of an election campaign.

[foenix]

I don't really feel I got an answer yet. All the responses to my question said that the Liberal Party SHOULD be paying it from their donations not the taxpayer. So then is it illegal or just unethical. I don't know what the rules are and I'm hoping one of you can enlighten me

It's illegal. Federal political parties cannot divert constituency (ie taxpayers') money for their campaigns.

Only individuals are allowed to donate to federal parties, up to $1,650 a year. There is also a mechanism for reimbursement of a portion of bona fide election writ period expenses during the course of an election campaign.

Doesn't sound like it's "illegal" reading the quote by Barrett. I'm pretty sure if it was "illegal", the CPC would be screaming bloody murder. Perhaps a link would be helpful to clarify that the taxpayer money usage of voter tracking database is "illegal".

[The Green Barbarian]

It's illegal. Federal political parties cannot divert constituency (ie taxpayers') money for their campaigns.

Only individuals are allowed to donate to federal parties, up to $1,650 a year. There is also a mechanism for reimbursement of a portion of bona fide election writ period expenses during the course of an election campaign.

100% correct. Only those being paid to do so would be defending this disgusting Liberal malfeasance. This could and should bring down the entire house of cards around Justin. This could mean jail time.

[Smurf]

The Green Barbarian wrote:

Snip!
This could mean jail time.

Canada could be so lucky, but I'm afraid JT is so slimy he would just slither out of it again.

[foenix]

It's illegal. Federal political parties cannot divert constituency (ie taxpayers') money for their campaigns.

Only individuals are allowed to donate to federal parties, up to $1,650 a year. There is also a mechanism for reimbursement of a portion of bona fide election writ period expenses during the course of an election campaign.

100% correct. Only those being paid to do so would be defending this disgusting Liberal malfeasance. This could and should bring down the entire house of cards around Justin. This could mean jail time.

Probably not. If the CPCs aren't crying and whining that it's illegal....the chances are, they are doing the same thing.

[mikest2]

Probably not. If the CPCs aren't crying and whining that it's illegal....the chances are, they are doing the same thing.

Oh, but they are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j005vMN6U4

[ckil]

Illegal or not, the Liberals have got to go.