Harassing calls spread to Ottawa

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Another Liberal campaign is complaining of harassing calls going out to voters in their riding, one week before Canadians go to the polls.

Scott Bradley, the Liberal candidate in Ottawa-Centre, says his riding is being targetted with late night and repeat phone calls asking people to vote Liberal. But, like others reported last week, he says they aren't coming from his campaign.

Bradley says he's filed a police report about the calls, which go out after 9 p.m. and come from a local area code. He says his campaign stops making calls around 8 p.m.

Last week, nine Liberal campaigns complained people in their ridings were getting harassing or rude phone calls from people claiming to be from the local Liberal campaigns.

Three of the six phone numbers traced back to First Contact, a call centre contracted to do phoning for the Liberals in 100 ridings. But both the Liberals and First Contact owner Mike O'Neill said the calls weren't coming from them.

O'Neill said someone is "spoofing" First Contact's numbers — projecting a fake caller ID — to impersonate his company. CBC News conducted its own experiment and found dozens of online companies and services that allow users to creat bogus caller IDs and faked display phone numbers. It takes just seconds and can be done for just pennies per call.

Oakville, Ont., Liberal candidate Max Khan released a statement Monday saying his team stopped making calls for a few days to see whether the reports of harassing calls stopped, but the unauthorized calls continued.

"These calls are not being placed by my team or anyone authorized to act on my behalf," Khan said in the statement.

"To be absolutely sure that this was a ploy, we suspended our phoning program for a period and verified that the calls were persisting. These calls are part of a deliberate and documented strategy of 'voter suppression,' aimed at annoying and alienating our supporters."

Bradley says he's neck-and-neck with NDP incumbent Paul Dewar and can't afford to suspend his calls.

"In fact, I think the campaigns that are running this against us, I'm sure that's what they're hoping we'll do," Bradley said.

"This is what these tactics do — they make it difficult for your campaign to do your work and talk about the issues that are important to the campaign."

Bradley brings to 10 the number of Liberal candidates who have complained their ridings are being targetted to annoy voters and possibly suppress the vote on election day. One candidate blamed the Conservative Party, which denies any involvement and has suggested it's the Liberals' own calling centre making the calls.

Spoofed numbers

O'Neill says the calls can't be coming from First Contact. He says neither the law nor his equipment will allow late-night or repeated calls.

Plus, he says, his records show no calls during the times reported by complainants. O'Neill says all his callers clearly identify themselves, the person on whose behalf they're calling, and even the company name if they're asked. And in at least one of the ridings that showed calls coming from his company, First Contact isn't contracted to make calls there.

While three of the six numbers come up as First Contact lines, the other three come from the U.S. One traces back to an out-of-service line.

CBC News has spoken to most of the NDP, Conservative and Green candidates in the ridings where Liberals report complaints and none of them have heard of any harassing or unaccounted for calls.

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