MacKay campaign dismisses O’Toole team’s allegation

Tension between the two perceived frontrunners of the Conservative leadership contest reached fever pitch this weekend with Erin O’Toole’s campaign accusing leadership rival Peter MacKay of stealing confidential campaign data — charges MacKay’s team is dismissing as a preposterous political ploy.

O’Toole’s campaign issued a latenight press release Friday, saying it has filed a formal complaint with three police agencies seeking an investigation into MacKay’s organization.

The complaint involves an alleged theft of confidential campaign and strategy data uncovered by an internal investigation after the O’Toole team’s systems were reportedly hacked earlier last week.

No proof or documentation has been provided about this investigation or its findings, nor have any details been released about how this investigation was conducted, except that it included data collection and in-person interviews.

The O’Toole campaign alleges the MacKay team obtained confidential O’Toole login information for virtual campaign meetings held over the popular video conferencing application Zoom, and that at least some of them were downloaded.

MacKay’s team is dismissing the allegations as a “desperate, last ditch strategy.”

It issued a statement Saturday calling it “mildly amusing” to be on the receiving end of this accusation late on a Friday of what they believe was a “bad week for the O’Toole campaign.”