Port Moody Council and Developer Watch #1

Campaign Support Limited’s Involvement in the Lahti Campaign in the 2022 Port Moody Civic Election.

Why is the Meghan Lahti campaign using a call centre in Ontario as part of her campaign?  Why are we dealing with outside influences in the Port Moody Civic Election? 

Initial Call

On Saturday, Sep. 24, 2022, I received a call from the “Lahti for Mayor” Campaign in Port Moody asking me if I was familiar with the work she had done on council and if I could count on her support. It sounded very scripted and the person was very disinterested when I said that I would not be supporting her which seemed rather odd.  When I called the number back as I was curious to its source, the recorded message said that it came from “Campaign Support” and that if I wanted to get in touch with them, that they would call me back to me in 3 business days but that I would have to leave my name and number and area code (?), which certainly didn’t sound like it came from a phone bank operated by local campaign volunteers.  The number that showed on my caller ID when I received the campaign call was a local number (778-783-3595). 

Conservative Connections

A quick Google search identifies Campaign Support (actually Campaign Support Limited) as the name of a Toronto-based firm that does, as the name sounds, campaign support (marketing, voter contact solutions, social media and digital marketing campaigns, etc.) and provides voter identification services. For those unaware, Campaign Support Limited is a well-known, largely right wing supporting, social media and marketing company that has worked on a number of right wing political campaigns in the past including Andrew Wilkinson’s leadership campaign for the BC Liberals, John Tory’s campaign for Mayor in Toronto, Doug Ford’s mayoral campaign, and Brian Jean’s 2017 UCP leadership campaign via the Alberta Fund PAC. The call centre manager for Campaign Support is Amber Jay Kouvalis, who is none other than Nick Kouvalis (Conservative operative and strategist extraordinaire)’s wife. Nick Kouvalis, is actually a principal at Campaign Research Incorporated and Campaign Support Limited (have a quick Google if you don’t know who he is and how he operates).  Kouvalis’s Campaign Research operated an AstroTurf campaign in B.C. during the electoral reform referendum in 2017 and was also part of the 2013 Christy Clark Campaign for the B.C. Liberals where he likely worked with Dave Teixeira as Teixeira headed up Clark’s social media for Christy Clark’s leadership and election campaigns at about the same time. 

Investigation Initiated

I contacted Elections B.C. regarding the call and was informed that any monies paid to Campaign Support Limited would have to be declared as part of a candidate’s financial statement and/or by a third party advertiser if someone else was paying for it. Elections B.C. also informed me at that time that any phone calls supporting a candidate are considered campaign advertising and that all campaign advertising must include the name of the financial agent, the words “authorized by”, and a B.C. phone number address or email contact address, none of which was provided during the call so I requested an investigation and Elections B.C. informed me that they would be following up on the information that I had provided. 

Returned Call

On October 4^th, 2022, I received a call back from the Call Centre Manager at Campaign Support Limited, Amber Kouvalis, who called me from home as she was working from home that day. The area code was 519 (I won’t publish the number), located in Southern Ontario. She confirmed a couple of things in that call: 

-That indeed Campaign Support Limited was doing calls in B.C. for the Port Moody Civic Election on behalf of the Meghan Lahti campaign. 

-That she was unaware that B.C. had disclosure laws regarding identifying the required sponsorship information in phone calls in the same manner as print advertising as per Pages 42 and 43 in the Guide to Elections Campaign Financing in B.C. for Candidates and their Financial Agents. The call should have provided information concerning the financial agent and contact information as part of the script (which it did not as I would have immediately recognized the name). She confirmed to me that the script read during the call did not include that information.  

When I asked her for the required sponsorship information though (the Lahti campaign finance head and contact information) she said she would have to get back to me on that as she did not have that information available. She was able to provide the Lahti campaign office phone number (778-879-9437) and the campaign address (2929 St. Johns Street) but no contact person information was provided. Again this was not part of the original script as required by law nor was it available as part of a call back as also required required by law. She informed me that she would have to “Check with Legal” about the requirement for required sponsorship information disclosures in B.C. 

Email and Elections B.C. Follow-Up

The next day, on October 5, 2022, I received an unsolicited email from Dave Teixeira, identifying himself as the Campaign Manager for the Lahti Campaign, indicating that he had talked to Elections B.C. about the identified concerns regarding the calls, passing on that Elections B.C. had thought that the Lahti campaign calls were compliant with the guidelines.  He provided the contact information for the person at Elections B.C. with whom he had spoken and suggested that I could talk to Elections B.C. if I wanted to confirm anything (which I appreciated and I took the opportunity to do so). I contacted the identified agent at Elections B.C. as suggested and it turned out Elections B.C. had actually erred in their initial review and that indeed the calls should have included the name of the campaign financial agent and their contact information in the calls as per the guidelines. That was not the case and an investigation of the Lahti Campaign by B.C. Elections has now been initiated. 

I will now await the results of the Election B.C. investigation into the matter.  There are up to $5,000 in fines to the Campaign Finance Agent for not disclosing required sponsorship information as part of campaign materials. 

More to the larger point though, why is an Ontario firm with some pretty solid connections to Conservative operations and operatives involved in the Port Moody Civic Election at all? Who was responsible for that? At the very least, why weren’t locals paid to do the calling rather than outsourcing the work to another Province? Why are we all of a sudden dealing with outside influences within the Port Moody Civic Election?  The Lahti Campaign should be asked directly about their involvement with Campaign Support Limited and just exactly how far that involvement extends and for how long. In addition, was Campaign Support Limited involved in any other previous “grassroots” (read AstroTurf) campaigns in Port Moody? I think a lot of people would like to know. 

Got any tips that we should know about? Send us an email at tips@portmoodycouncilwatch.ca