Mr. Mathews is leading the ongoing Commissioner of Canada Elections investigation into allegations of misleading phone calls made on the day of the May 2, 2011 federal election, and has been working his way “very methodically” through evidence, but appears to now be likely nearing the end of his investigation, says Ottawa Citizen journalist Glen McGregor who, along with Postmedia News reporter Stephen Maher, have been closely tracking Mr. Mathews’ investigation and are the two reporters who broke the original story.
“We’ve been following his trail as he’s been following the trail of Pierre Poutine, and the documentary evidence—his court filings—make it pretty clear that he’s been following methodically and persistently, which gives one a sense that that’s his character, to do the job by the book. You get the sense from reading his reports that he’s resourceful and persistent, and a clear thinker,” said Mr. Maher.
Mr. McGregor said he believes Mr. Mathews is very close to concluding the investigation.
Elections Canada’s investigation into the robocalls scandal has been ongoing for more than a year and began just days after the last election.
On Feb. 22, Mr. Maher and Mr. McGregor broke the news that Elections Canada was conducting an investigation into misleading election-day phone calls, centered on the riding of Guelph, Ont. They traced the calls to Edmonton call centre RackNine Inc., a small firm that had worked on the Conservative Party’s national campaign, as well as at least nine Conservative candidates, including the campaign of Marty Burke, the Conservative candidate for Guelph, Ont. RackNine Inc. owner Matt Meier has said he has done nothing wrong, did not know his company was allegedly used for these purposes, and has cooperated fully with the Elections Canada investigation.
“During or immediately after the election, we received approximately 70 complaints alleging various forms of improper telephone communications, including messages impersonating Elections Canada employees and sending electors to the wrong poll location,” said Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand in his March 29 testimony before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, a rare instance of public comment on the investigation.
Mr. Mayrand said Elections Canada received more than 800 complaints “alleging specific occurrences of improper or fraudulent calls across the country” from an approximate total of 200 ridings.
“Significant details of the investigation were included in various court documents that were revealed by the media on Feb. 22, 2012, and since that date. These show that on May 5, 2011, a senior investigator in Ottawa communicated with some of the complainants and met with them in Guelph on May 19,” Mr. Mayrand said.
That “senior investigator,” is, by all indications, Mr. Mathews—one of four investigators employed in the office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, according to the government’s electronic directory service. Along with Mr. Mathews in the office are investigators Ronald Lamothe, Tim Charbonneau, and Brennan Ouimet. Also in the office, according to GEDS, is director of investigations Nicholas Alexander, para-legal Josée Leblanc, legal counsel Jean-Michel Kalubiaka, legal counsel Patricia Moïse, and general counsel Johanne Gauthier, along with three administrative assistants.
From the beginning of Mr. McGregor’s and Mr. Maher’s own journalistic investigation into allegations of misleading phone calls—which also quietly began just after the last federal election—“everybody we talked to had mentioned that they had spoken to [Mr. Mathews],” said Mr. McGregor.
Elections Canada has been tight-lipped on its investigation, aside from Mr. Mayrand’s committee appearance and a March 15 statement noting that since the Feb. 22 Ottawa Citizen-Postmedia story broke “approximately 31,000 Canadians have contacted Elections Canada to share their concerns.”
Media have instead largely relied upon descriptions of the investigation laid out in court documents, the majority of which Mr. Mathews filed.
In order to obtain a production order for, say, getting access to records in the possession of RackNine Inc., an investigator would have to file an information to obtain (ITO),which contains an affidavit, essentially explaining what is known thus far in the investigation and why it’s believed the records are relevant, in order to get court approval for a warrant. Such documents are not made public until after the investigator files a return stating that the requested records have been received.
“[Mr. Mathews has] essentially become the public voice of this by himself,” Mr. McGregor said. “He isn’t saying anything, but in order to obtain these court orders, he has to basically lay out his entire investigation in writing and swear to it’s true, which for journalists, it’s a gold mine.…That’s where the name Pierre Poutine came from, from one of his affidavits.”
Mr. Maher said he has spoken on the phone with Mr. Mathews on two occasions, both of which lasted a grand total of about “10 seconds.”
“He was courteous and said that he had no comment, and soon thereafter I got a call from John Enright, the spokesman for Elections Canada, reminding me that it’s not the function of investigators to speak to the media,” said Mr. Maher.
Beginning in Guelph, Ont., Elections Canada began looking into reports of misleading phonecalls. Whoever was responsible for making the fraudulent robocalls used a disposable cellphone, registered under the name “Pierre Poutine,” and paid for RackNine’s voice broadcasting services via PayPal by using prepaid credit cards purchased at two Shoppers Drug Mart stores in Guelph. Elections Canada’s attempts to trace the IP address used by “Mr. Poutine” to access his RackNine account led them to Saskatchewan-based website company Free Proxy Server, which allows people to conceal their real IP address by using a proxy one provided by the company.
“From following the paper trail it doesn’t appear to be a team effort, it looks like Mathews is the solitary quiet man with a moustache, a veteran Mountie, plodding methodically on the trail of Pierre Poutine, that’s the way it looks to us, that’s what the paper trail suggests,” said Mr. Maher.
Indeed, Mr. Mathews has extensive investigative experience. Before becoming an Elections Canada investigator (Elections Canada declined to comment on when Mr. Mathews started working for them, but it’s believed to be sometime in 2008), Mr. Mathews was a superintendent with the RCMP, one of the highest ranks in the force.
Mr. Mathews became superintendent in 2002, but by that time was already an approximately 30-year veteran of the RCMP, according to author William Kaplan in his book A Secret Trial: Brian Mulroney, Stevie Cameron and the Public Trust.
Mr. Mathews began his years with the RCMP in the Mounties’ training college in Regina, Sask., and subsequently received a series of assignments around rural Saskatchewan, giving Mr. Mathews a good knowledge of town, rural and aboriginal policing, Mr. Kaplan writes. He was promoted to corporal and then went to law school at the University of Ottawa. Mr. Mathews earned a BA from Concordia University in Montreal, then named Sir George Williams University, before joining the Mounties.
With a law degree under his belt, Mr. Mathews was soon after promoted to staff sergeant, and, in 1997, was promoted to inspector. In 1998, Mr. Kaplan writes, Mr. Mathews was assigned to the Special Projects Department of the Commercial Crime Section.
Mr. Mathews began working on the RCMP’s investigation into the Airbus affair involving former prime minister Brian Mulroney and eventually assumed responsibility for the file in November 2000, as described in Mr. Kaplan’s book.
A certified fraud examiner, Mr. Mathews was also involved in the RCMP’s investigation into former privacy commissioner George Radwanski in 2004.
Mr. Mathews, who lives in Ottawa, has filed almost all his requests to obtain information in Ottawa, suggesting that the main hub of Mr. Mathews’ investigation is the Commissioner of Canada Elections’ downtown office on Slater Street. But, as it’s generally the practice that information to obtain documents or similar documents are filed in the court of the province where the related records or documents are located, Mr. Mathews has travelled to both Alberta and Saskatchewan, the locations of RackNine Inc. and company Free Proxy Server, respectively, in his hunt for robocalls suspect “Pierre Poutine.”
United Church minister Sue Campbell—who is married to John Lawson, the Green Party candidate for Guelph, Ont., in the 2011 federal election, and who reported receiving an election-day call informing her that her polling location had changed—was interviewed by Mr. Mathews, and in an email to The Hill Times said she found Mr. Mathews to be “polite and very thorough.”
“He had certainly done his homework prior to interviewing me. He first called me a couple of days after I registered my complaint with Elections Canada and then followed up with a face-to-face interview here in Guelph about a week or so after that. Very professional. Very competent,” wrote Ms. Campbell in her email.
At least two other Commissioner of Canada Elections investigators are known to be working alongside Mr. Mathews. At the beginning of March, media reported that investigator Mr. Lamothe had been sent to Thunder Bay, Ont. to conduct interviews as part of Elections Canada’s probe.
Mr. McGregor said he believes Mr. Lamothe is a relatively newer addition to the investigation who came on board on when things started to heat up.
Mr. Lamothe similarly has an extensive law enforcement background. He is best known as the lead investigator on the 2006 in-and-out election spending scandal investigation by Elections Canada.
Before joining Elections Canada sometime in the early 2000s, Mr. Lamothe spent decades working for the Ottawa-Carleton Police; in 2000, Mr. Lamothe was serving as inspector, heading the Kanata-Stittsville district. In 1996, Mr. Lamothe was awarded the Canadian Banks’ Law Enforcement Award for his successful handling of an armed robbery and hostage-taking situation at a Bank of Nova Scotia location in Ottawa.
It’s likely no coincidence that both Mr. Lamothe and Mr. Mathews have experience investigating politically charged issues. Mr. Maher said Mr. Mathews’ experience with the Airbus investigation has likely given him some useful knowledge to draw upon in understanding the terrain of this investigation.
“Investigations that have political elements are treacherous [terrain], they’re difficult, they’re challenging,” said Mr. Maher.
The other Elections Canada investigator whose name has surfaced in connection with the robocalls investigation is Mr. Charbonneau, though he appears to be focused on investigating possible instances of fraudulent phone calls being reported to Elections Canada outside the riding of Guelph, Ont. Based on media reports, Mr. Charbonneau has interviewed people in Thunder Bay, Toronto, and the riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont.
Once the Elections Canada investigation is complete, the findings would be turned over to Commissioner of Canada Elections William Corbett, who would then decide whether charges should be laid.
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Ted Optiz’s 2011 federal election win last year was declared null and void by an Ontario Superior Court judge on Friday, May 18. Mr. Opitz won the election by 26 votes, but former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj challenged the election result in court over voting irregularities, according to the CBC.
Justice Thomas Lederer set aside 79 ballots in his ruling in Toronto. Mr. Optiz has eight days to appeal, according to the CBC, and if he does, the case could be heard by the Supreme Court by June.
Meanwhile, the federal Conservatives reportedly want the Federal Court to throw out the Council of Canadians’ legal challenge that claims misleading telephone calls were made in the last election in seven ridings, including: Elmwood-Transcona, Man.; Winnipeg Centre, Man.; Don Valley East, Ont.; Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Sask.; Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont.; Vancouver Island, B.C.; and Yukon.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Laura Ryckewaert
No comments:
Post a Comment