An affidavit filed by Elections Canada investigator Thomas Ritchie says that he was told in December that Del Mastro had promised a Conservative volunteer in Peterborough that the MP would personally “handle the matter.”
Del Mastro, the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is under investigation for allegedly overspending on the campaign by paying $21,000 to an Ottawa company to contact voters and get-out-the-vote on election day.
When asked about the investigation in a telephone interview on June 6, Del Mastro appeared surprised.
“I have no knowledge of what you’re talking about,” he said then.
He later complained, in an emotionally charged television appearance, that he could not defend himself when he didn’t even know about the investigation.
And in the House of Commons, he said he had never been contacted by the agency.
Ritchie’s affidavit describes how he and another Elections Canada investigator, Al Mathews, went to Peterborough to interview Daniel Rosborough, the financial agent of Del Mastro’s electoral district association.
According to Ritchie’s sworn statement, Rosborough told them “He had contacted Dean Del Mastro after I had called him and that he was advised by Dean Del Mastro that he (Dean Del Mastro) would handle the matter with Elections Canada.”
And, Ritchie said, Rosborough told them, “He (Daniel Rosborough) would not provide access to the EDA’s records or be interviewed unless authorized to do so by Dean Del Mastro.”
The two men had arranged to interview Rosborough about the association’s finances two weeks in advance of their Dec. 15 meeting, but when they got to his Peterborough office, he refused to be interviewed and told them to talk to Del Mastro directly.
The following day, they were scheduled to interview campaign manager John McNutt at Del Mastro’s constituency office. McNutt texted them to state that Del Mastro would attend the meeting. Instead of sitting down with both men, Ritchie and Mathews drove directly to McNutt’s office and interviewed him alone.
Ritchie’s sworn statement seems sharply at odds with Del Mastro’s recent claims that he knew nothing of an Elections Canada investigation.
When the Citizen and Postmedia News first reported on the investigation on June 6, Del Mastro made an unscheduled appearance on the CBC program Power and Politics to say he had done nothing wrong in his election filings and to assert that he first learned of the investigation in the phone call from a Postmedia reporter.
“I’ve got to tell that it’s very odd that the way I find out about this is Steve [Maher] calling me on my cellphone and saying, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?” Del Mastro said.
“I think for a lot of folks sitting at home, they would probably look at this and say, ‘To me, that seems odd.’”
“It was all news to me,” Del Mastro added, before saying media reports of this kind “tear you up” because they can besmirch his family name in Peterborough.
“This stands as something that Elections Canada has apparently undertaken without contacting me,” he said.
The following day in the House of Commons, Del Mastro was asked about the investigation by Liberal MP Scott Andrews.
“I have never been contacted by Elections Canada on this matter,” he said.
That may be true — there is no indication that either investigator followed through and contacted Del Mastro, only that Rosborough said he had told the MP about it.
Since then, Conservatives defending Del Mastro in the House have often mentioned that Elections Canada had not informed him that he was under investigation.
On June 15, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said: “He has not heard from Elections Canada on this matter.”
Del Mastro has repeatedly stated that the investigators ought to have contacted him to sort out any problems with his return.
Kenney seemed to echo that view on June 15.
“One would think that a member would be contacted by Elections Canada if, in fact, it was leading an investigation into previous election expenses,” he said.
Ritchie’s affidavit, filed to obtain a production order compelling the release of Del Mastro’s personal banking records, describes in detail an interview he and Mathews held with McNutt, Del Mastro’s campaign manager. McNutt told investigators that although he warned Del Mastro against spending too much money on advertising because of the election spending limit, Del Mastro “remained anxious to spend funds.”
Elections Canada alleges that Del Mastro and McCarthy conspired to pay $21,000 to Holinshed, a voter contact company, for voter-identification calls, and to conceal the payment from Elections Canada, which meant the campaign secretly overspent its election limit by more than $17,000.
They also suspect Del Mastro’s official agent, Richard McCarthy, of elections act violations.
Ritchie writes that McNutt was “excluded from discussions between, and the final decision made by Richard McCarthy ... and Dean Del Mastro concerning the method of payment of the $21,000 contract between Holinshed and the campaign and the non-reporting of the $21,000 contract in the return as an election expense.”
McNutt was also shown a copy of a hand-written note on Holinshed letter that said $10,000 was being returned to the campaign because the contract had been cancelled. Ritchie contends in other court filings this is a “false” document. A handwriting expert contracted by Postmedia and the Citizen has said the writing matches the handwriting on a list of donors provided in other campaign filings.
Ritchie says McNutt told him he had never seen the document. “Further, it was his [McNutt’s] ‘guess’ that the writing was that of Richard McCarthy, official agent.”
Del Mastro has stated that payments to Holinshed were for work outside the election campaign, but McNutt told Elections Canada that after signing a contract, “Holinshed started providing information to the campaign on a daily basis about the results of Holinshed’s calling efforts to voters in Peterborough.”
The information from Holinshed “was also provided to Dean Del Mastro as it was information the candidate wanted to know about.”
Del Mastro has repeatedly asserted that he has done nothing wrong, and initially promised to come forward with documents to clear everything up. He has not done so. Last week, his lawyer released a letter complaining that Elections Canada investigators have refused to meet with Del Mastro unless he agreed to give a “cautioned statement,” a legal term meaning that they would be able to use his words in court.
The alleged violations of the Elections Act that Del Mastro and McCarthy face are each punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000.
In an emailed statement Thursday, Del Mastro did not respond to a question about the apparent contradiction between his story and the story of Elections Canada investigators, but asserted that his campaign followed all the rules, and submitted documents that were subsequently audited.
“Despite the facts, Elections Canada has undertaken a process where they have sought court orders for documents that would have been extended freely had they simply approached me with any questions or concerns that they had,” he wrote. “I am saddened and disappointed that this has been their preferred course but will vigorously defend myself moving forward.”
None of the allegations against Del Mastro has been proven in court.
Since the first reports of the Elections Canada investigation, opposition MPs have called for Del Mastro to step aside from his role as parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, saying that he is unable to credibly comment on ethical matters or Elections Canada until the investigation is complete.
Last Wednesday, Harper spoke up for Del Mastro, and suggested opposition MPs were being unfair to him.
“He serves his constituents and this House honourably, and I think we all should treat each other with a little more consideration than that,” he aid.
Del Mastro has served as the government’s point man on the robocalls scandal, deflecting questions about misleading telephone calls made to voters in the last election.
Mathews, who is assisting Ritchie, is also leading the Elections Canada investigation into robocalls in Guelph.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: GLEN McGREGOR AND STEPHEN MAHER
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