Probe into election ‘robocalls’

Elections Canada has traced fraudulent phone calls made during the federal election to an Edmonton voice-broadcast company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country.

The Tories are also conducting an internal probe with a party lawyer interviewing campaign workers to find who was behind the deceptive “robocalls.”

Elections Canada launched its investigation after it was inundated with complaints about election-day calls in Guelph, Ont., one of 18 ridings across the country where voters were targeted by harassing or deceptive phone messages in an apparent effort to discourage Liberal supporters from voting.

In Guelph, voters received recorded calls pretending to be from Elections Canada, telling them their polling stations had been moved. The calls led to a chaotic scene at one polling station, and likely led some voters to give up on voting.

Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen have found that Elections Canada traced the calls to Racknine Inc., an Edmonton call centre that worked for the party’s national campaign and those of at least nine Tory candidates.

Racknine says it was unaware its servers were being used for the fake calls.

Elections Canada came to Racknine after a digital chase that began with a single phone number that showed up on call displays. Investigators traced it to a disposable “burner” cellphone.

Matt Meier, owner of Racknine, said he was unaware one of his customers was involved in the calls until contacted by Elections Canada. He said he knows whose account was used for the calls, but couldn’t reveal the owner because of client confidentiality.

The investigation found calls misdirecting voters were also reported in ridings across the country, including Winnipeg South and Sydney-victoria.

Liberal supporters in a dozen ridings reported mysterious harassing calls where rude callers from a phone bank pretended to be working for the Liberals. The calls seem to have been an attempt to alienate Liberal voters in ridings where the Liberals and Conservatives seemed to be in close contests.