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OTTAWA — Elections Canada says it was told by Conservativestaffers that local campaign workers in Guelph, Ont., openlydiscussed making misleading telephone calls during the lastelection. Newly filed court documents say Conservatives told chiefinvestigator Allan Mathews that Guelph Tory staffer Michael Sonatalked about American-style politics and making misleading orharassing calls to non-supporters. Sona was the communications director for Guelph Conservativecandidate Marty Burke. He has denied being behind the calls. But two Conservatives told Mathews that Sona spoke about misleadingcalls. Matthew McBain worked in the party"s central war roomin Ottawa. He says Sona, who he did not know, left him voice mailsduring the campaign. "McBain subsequently contacted Sona. Sona spoke to McBainabout a campaign of disinformation such as making a misleading pollmoving phone call," the court document says. "McBain warned Sona off such conduct as the party would notstand for it. That was the end of McBain"sinvolvement." One of Sona"s co-workers on the Burke campaign, ChristopherCrawford, provided a similar account. He told Mathews he overhearda conversation between Sona and Burke"s campaign manager, KenMorgan. "He overheard a conversation … in which Sona wasdescribing "how the Americans do politics," using theexamples of calling non-supporters late at night, pretending to beliberals, or calling electors to tell them their poll location hadchanged," the court document says. Crawford told Mathews he didn"t think Sona was serious, buthe told him that his comments were not appropriate. Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton accompanied McBain andCrawford when they spoke to Mathews. A third Tory staffer, Christopher Rougier, says Burke"sdeputy campaign manager, Andrew Prescott, had access to call upGuelph voter data using the party"s central database. Rougier, who was also accompanied to his meeting by Hamilton, saysPrescott called up three phone lists on April 30, 2011, anddownloaded the reports to a local computer. The lawyer gave Mathews two of the three lists that Prescottdownloaded. A third list could not be recovered from the centraldatabase. Based on his conversations with Conservative staff, Mathewsconcluded Guelph campaign workers talked about making misleadingcalls to voters in the run-up to the May 2 federal election. The document was filed as part of a production order seeking accessto records held by Rogers Communications, specifically Internetprotocol information that could be used to track whoever was behindthe calls. The court filings also shed light on Mathews" hunt for theelusive "Pierre Poutine," the name linked to theaccount behind the Guelph calls. To Edmonton-based RackNine Inc., he was client 93, who gave thefake name Pierre S. Jones. The client identification number may help Mathews narrow in onPierre Poutine. Prescott has said he owns a small business that has an account withRackNine. The court document says RackNine assigned Prescott clientnumber 45. The court records show client 93 and someone using Prescott"saccount logged in to the same computer within four minutes of eachother on May 2, election day. "At a minimum this session log information means that client#93 used the same computer as did client #45," the courtdocument says. Prescott did not immediately return a call for comment. An attemptto reach Sona was unsuccessful. Conservative party spokesman Fred DeLorey says all documents havebeen turned over to Elections Canada. "We have proactively reached out to Elections Canada andoffered to assist them in any way we can," he said in anemail. "That includes handing over any documents or records that mayassist them. We will not comment on specifics as we do not want tocompromise any part of the investigation.". We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Waterproof Printed Labels , China Biodegradable Shopping Bags for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Plastic Bread Bags.
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