Peterborough, Ont., Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, who serves as parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, on Monday repeatedly accused the Liberals of using deceptive robocalls in Guelph, Ont., two days before the May 2, 2011 vote.
But a story from the Peterborough Examiner from last May shows that Del Mastro had admitted he was behind pre-recorded robocalls that the area provincial representative said left his constituents confused.
The messages urging people to go vote were from someone identifying himself only as “Jeff.”
Liberal member of the Ontario legislature Jeff Leal told the paper he had heard complaints from constituents who thought the caller was “an impostor” pretending to be him.
Leal even sent out a news release complaining about what he thought was a prank. The paper described Leal as “hopping mad” over the calls.
The day after the election, Del Mastro contacted the newspaper and admitted his campaign had sent out two robocalls on voting day and that the “Jeff” in the message was, in fact, his own campaign manager, Jeff Westlake.
Del Mastro told the paper the messages reminded people it was election day and gave his campaign’s phone number with an offer of rides to the polling stations.
The robocalls were sent out on Del Mastro’s behalf by Campaign Research, a firm used by 39 different Conservative campaigns in the election. The firm later made headlines for making contentious calls into the Montreal riding of Irwin Cotler, suggesting the veteran Liberal MP was planning to retire.
The election day robocall in Peterborough may not have had the caller’s full name, as would be ideal, but it did identify the campaign and it did include a real phone number people could call for more information, said Nick Kouvalis, Campaign Research’s principal partner, in an interview on Monday.
“He did identify the campaign office phone number on the call display,” he said. “And Jeff, his campaign manager, introduced himself at the front of the script. I think they could have done a better job on identification, but it’s pretty clear.”
In comparison, he said, it was impossible to know the source of an abortion-warning call from federal Liberal Frank Valeriote’s campaign in Guelph just by listening to the recording.
“The person says they’re somebody they’re not,” he said. “They don’t give a phone number to call back. They’re two different things.”
Westlake was paid $1,600 for work on the Conservative campaign and is now a constituency assistant in Del Mastro’s Peterborough office. Neither he nor Del Mastro’s office responded to requests for comment.
The revelation of the Del Maestro robocalls comes after news of a robocall sent out by Valeriote two days before the election. The Valeriote call gave the Conservatives a new way to deflect questions in the House of Commons Monday.
Valeriote admitted over the weekend that his campaign was behind a call to voters on April 20 that attacked Conservative candidate Marty Burke over his views on abortion.
Valeriote has allowed that the call, recorded by a female volunteer using an assumed name, should have been identified as coming from his campaign.
But his office contends the calls were legal, despite Election Canada rules that require the sponsor of communication that promotes or opposes a candidate must be identified.
Del Mastro previously attempted to rebuff opposition attacks over robocalls by alleging the Liberals had used a voice-broadcasting company located in the United States and claiming his party didn’t use American firms.
The defence backfired when it was revealed that Del Mastro had confused a U.S. firm with the same name with the unrelated Ontario company the Liberals used. And Del Mastro’s campaign, it turned out, was using an Ohio-based company to arrange telephone town halls.
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