Hoax website highlights disgraced Tories

A new Conservative Party fundraising site launched late Sunday caused a lot of confusion on social media Monday.

Using the Conservative logo, a group of activists put together a hoax website appealing for donations to support Dean Del Mastro, the former Conservative MP who was convicted of campaign overspending and trying to cover it up, and Michael Sona, the former Tory campaigner convicted of election fraud.

The website, conservativelegacyfund.ca, looked so real, it had some on Twitter confused, especially because its “donate” button linked to the Conservative Party’s real website (a tweet from the group says the link has since been blocked).

“We thought that if a Conservative is going to cheat to get elected, at the very least, members of the Conservative party should pay for it,” said Sean Devlin, a spokesman for the group and executive director of Sh*t Harper Did, a website that critiques and makes fun of Conservative policies.

The group even bought Facebook ads targeted at Conservative supporters, Devlin said.

The hoax put the spotlight on Del Mastro just as Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was paying a visit to the former MP’s Peterborough, Ont., riding Monday.

Del Mastro was sentenced in June to one month in jail and four months of house arrest.

Sona was sentenced to nine months in prison and 12 months of probation after being found guilty in 2014 for his role in the robocalls scandal that directed thousands of opposition supporters in Guelph, Ont., to the wrong polling booth.

The web page’s designer, Shane Ingals, said the fake website was simple to create and only took about a day’s work. The Conservative Party would only confirm the website is not theirs, and did not provide any further comment to the Post.