Jean Charest鈥檚 team says it is aware that fake donation pledges were made to the Conservative leadership candidate鈥檚 campaign, calling the situation 鈥渁n obvious attempt to create chaos.鈥�
Charest鈥檚 campaign says it was made aware on Wednesday afternoon of emails going out to 鈥渟everal individuals鈥� suggesting incorrectly that they had made financial donations to the leadership hopeful, when they hadn鈥檛.
鈥淭his is an obvious attempt to create chaos. Our campaign will not tolerate it,鈥� Charest spokesperson Laurence Toth said in a statement to 麻豆传媒.
According to the Canadian Press, The Conservative Party of Canada has said that it is confident that its membership data has not been compromised. 麻豆传媒 has asked the party for confirmation.
Conservative strategist and former senior staffer to Erin O鈥橳oole, to warn fellow party members of the alleged breach, after she received an email from a campaign which she did not identity, thanking her for donating $120 to the candidate.
Except, Paradis said she didn鈥檛 make this donation, as she is not backing any Conservative leadership candidate. She said she then reached out to the candidate鈥檚 campaign manager to investigate.
What they found was that it appeared as if Paradis鈥攁nd according to her, 鈥渉undreds more鈥濃�攈ad filled out an online pledge form, using personal information that Paradis suspected dates back to the last leadership race, from an IP address originating in Kyiv.
鈥淯pon investigation we discovered that someone had gone to the campaign website and created false pledge submissions with IP addresses originating in Ukraine,鈥� Toth confirmed.
Charest鈥檚 campaign told 麻豆传媒 it has notified those who were impacted by the error as well as the Conservative Party鈥檚 Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC), and will be working with LEOC as they review what went on and who may have been behind it.
Paradis said that while some may chalk this up to 鈥渏uvenile trolling meant to mess with a campaign鈥檚 data,鈥� in her view, it鈥檚 鈥渁n attempt to corrupt the process鈥� of the party鈥檚 leadership election.
According to the current , candidates are able to access the party鈥檚 membership list as well as old membership records dating back to 2019, with conditions. In order to get access, hopefuls have to submit 500 signatures from members, pay half of the party鈥檚 $200,000 registration fee, and acknowledge that the data is 鈥渃onfidential and the exclusive property of the Conservative Party of Canada.鈥�
For years, privacy advocates have expressed concerns over the lack of transparency when it comes to what political parties do with the data they collect and what requirements there are for Canadians to be informed if a privacy breach has occurred of a political party鈥檚 database.
As part of a series of elections law changes made by the Liberals political parties to post their privacy policies online, but stopped short of subjecting parties to tougher privacy rules and oversight for the information they harvest from the electorate, despite calls to do so.
