slipring

Cranes Conservatives used robocalls to reach out

Progressive Conservative party leader Olive Crane made five calls to the same company under investigation by Elections Canada for fraudulent robocalls during the federal election The Guardian has learned.

Officials in the PC Opposition office say their use of RackNines services had nothing to do with the federal election and only pertained to provincial party issues and events.During the month of April five calls were made from a phone number connected with the provincial Opposition office to the Alberta based company RackNine  according to information received by The Guardian.

RackNine is at the centre of a national controversy and an Elections Canada investigation after complaints were received that voters in at least  ridings were given false information about where to cast their ballots during the spring federal election.Kent Avery Cranes chief of staff says the calls Crane made to RackNine during the time period of the federal election campaign were only made to record telephone messages for provincial matters.

Crane was using the firm which provides an automated calling service to inform members of the PC party in  about upcoming meetings and policy sessions Avery denied any involvement of the provincial Opposition office with the federal election campaign.

In this particular instance we enabled and purchased an automatic dialer system that would be used to disseminate a message from our party our leader around party events Avery said in an interview Wednesday