A handwriting analyst hired by the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia has concluded that the handwriting on the document matches the writing of a Del Mastro campaign worker.
Del Mastro, who often defends the government on ethical questions in his role as parliamentary secretary for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is under investigation by Elections Canada for allegedly exceeding his spending and donation limit in the 2008 election, offences punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and up to five years in prison.
His official agent, Richard McCarthy, is under investigation for allegedly accepting an illegal donation from Del Mastro and knowingly filing a false return.
Neither man has been charged and both have stated publicly that their submissions to Elections Canada were complete and accurate.
The investigation relates to $21,000 paid to Holinshed Research Group, a now-defunct voter-contact company, allegedly for 630 hours of voter-identification and get-out-the-vote calls during the 2008 campaign.
The allegations are revealed in an Information to Obtain a production order (ITO), signed by Elections Canada investigator Thomas Ritchie, that compelled company president Frank Hall to produce the records.
Del Mastro “took steps to hide the true nature” of the transaction, Ritchie writes.
Ritchie writes that Hall would not provide the records unless a court ordered him to do so.
According to a Ritchie, a memo filed by Del Mastro’s campaign that purports to show a partial refund of that money was not actually produced by Holinshed.
The unsigned document, dated Oct. 31, 2008, asserts that Holinshed had repaid the campaign $10,000.
“Return of deposit in amount of $10,000 sent in error from Dean Del Mastro’s campaign account. Invoice to be sent to (electoral district association) detailing portion relating to campaign.”
Hall told Ritchie in 2011 that he did not write the note and the handwriting was not that of anyone employed by his company.
Handwriting expert Kenneth J. Davies, of Calgary, examined the documents on behalf of the Citizen and Postmedia on Wednesday and said that, in his opinion, the document was written with the same handwriting as an unidentified campaign worker who wrote out a list of campaign contributors on another document in the file.
“It is the firm opinion of this analyst that the handwriting of the note” and the handwriting on the list of contributors was “written by one and the same person,” Davies writes in his report.
The memo in question is a “false document,” according to Ritchie’s affidavit.
He writes that he believes the document is false because Hall states that Holinshed did not produce the document and the two-sentence statement in the memo “is inconsistent with my investigation which determined that the full amount of the $21,000 contract was an election expense.”
The affidavit from Ritchie shows that the investigator has been investigating Del Mastro and McCarthy since April 2011, when Hall filed a complaint — and long before the first reports of the robocalls scandal for which Del Mastro acts as the party’s pointman.
Hall had filed a suit in small claims court against Del Mastro, claiming that the Peterborough MP had failed to pay him for a custom software package he provided after the election campaign.
Under another court order, In December 2011, Ritchie obtained Del Mastro’s personal banking records from the Royal Bank. They show a withdrawal by cheque of $21,000 on Oct. 14, 2008. Records in Hall’s small claims suit show that Del Mastro gave him a cheque for the same amount, dated Aug. 18, 2008.
Ritchie has since received records from Hall that detail hours of work by callers in an Ottawa call centre during the election campaign, according to a source familiar with the documents.
Instead of filing paperwork to Elections Canada showing payment for $21,000, the affidavit says, Del Mastro asked Hall for an invoice for $1,575, which was signed by Del Mastro and filed with Elections Canada as the only election expense related to Holinshed by the Del Mastro campaign.
“Had the $21,000 contract been correctly reported in the return, the campaign’s election expenses would have put the campaign over its legal election expenses limit by approximately $17,845.73,” Ritchie wrote.
Ritchie writes that documents he was seeking from Holinshed would provide evidence that a $21,000 contract existed and “Dean Del Mastro authorized and knew of it.”
Among the allegations are the investigator’s claim that he believed, based on interviews and information he received, Del Mastro paid for Holinshed’s work with a personal cheque “in a manner that facilitated the concealing and misreporting of election expenses and contributions.”
Del Mastro, who has promised to come forward with documents that clear his name, told CBC News this week that his campaign did not hire Holinshed.
“The campaign never incurred a $21,000 expenditure from Holinshed research,” he said. “Did not.”
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, when Liberal Leader Bob Rae called on Stephen Harper to explain Del Mastro’s $21,000 payment, the prime minister said that Del Mastro had submitted all information as required years ago.
“He serves his constituents and this House honourably, and I think we all should treat each other with a little more consideration than that,” said Harper.
Del Mastro did not reply to emails on Thursday concerning the information contained in the court order, or the information that the Holinshed memo appeared to be written by someone on his campaign staff.
Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey said in a statement Thursday that the memo in question referred to a legitimate process.
“The campaign sent a cheque in error and the campaign was refunded that cheque,” he wrote.
Del Mastro and his defenders have repeatedly pointed out that the campaign statements were audited.
In Ritchie’s affidavit, he reports that the auditor “accepted $1,575... based on the explanations as provided to her by Richard McCarthy.”
The production order was released by an Ottawa court after Ritchie filed a “return” — indicating the order had been executed — effectively making the ITO a public document. It was not released by Elections Canada, which will neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: STEPHEN MAHER and GLEN McGREGOR
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