Alberta’s UCP caucus staff attended separatist group’s online meeting
The United Conservative Party caucus confirmed Tuesday that caucus staff attended an online meeting last month hosted by an Alberta separatist group called the Centurion Project, but said the staff believed the data being presented at the gathering had been legally obtained.Just two weeks after that meeting, a judge ordered the Centurion Project to shut down a digital database that included private voter information.On Tuesday, the Alberta NDP publicly released three screenshots from what it said was an April 16 online meeting. The images showed two purported meeting participants with the same names as the UCP president and a caucus staff member. While a UCP spokesperson confirmed staff attended the meeting, they said the party's president did not and that he was at a party fundraiser at the time.The NDP said some of the meeting's attendees saw presenters share a digital tool containing the personal information of Alberta voters.The NDP claims the video shows Centurion Project organizer David Parker searching for former Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s name in a tool labelled “search electors” as he demonstrates how to use the app. The information under Kenney’s name is blacked out in the picture shared by the NDP.CBC News has contacted three people involved in the Centurion Project, including Parker, for comment. None had responded by publication time.The Centurion Project is registered as a third-party advertiser in Alberta and court was told last week that Parker is its main organizer. In a statement issued on Thursday, the group said it relied on a "third party" to provide it with datasets for its tool which it says is used to “help train volunteers on how to be better citizens and to impact the political process.”“To be clear, the Centurion App is strictly used by volunteers to find people they personally know in a database,” the group said. "They are not given access to any phone numbers or emails and are encouraged only to contact and claim people they already know." At a news conference on Tuesday, NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said he has seen a video that reveals that Kenney's home address and personal information was shown to meeting participants. The NDP says it has a copy of the video, but is not releasing it, as the party has sent it to the RCMP.CBC News has not seen the video or independently verified the screenshots.Nenshi said he believes any UCP staff attending the meeting should have told the provincial UCP government and the police that Centurion Project organizers could be improperly using personal information from the province’s list of electors.“It's totally unacceptable," he said. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi says United Conservative Party staff members attended a meeting where Albertans' personal data was shared, and says those staffers should have reported it to government and the police. (Paul Rampersaud/CBC News)In response to a question from CBC News about whether anyone with the NDP attended the meeting, Nenshi said he wouldn’t reveal his sources.Elections Alberta, police investigating privacy breachThe details about the April 16 meeting emerged six days after Elections Alberta obtained a court injunction against the Centurion Project, saying the group had obtained and misused the province’s list of electors for a database. The list of nearly three million adults in Alberta includes eligible voters' full names, home addresses and phone numbers.Elections Alberta said pretend names that it seeds into lists of electors it provides to political parties show that the Centurion Project was using a list that was legally given to the Republican Party of Alberta.That party has said it is co-operating with the agency’s investigation. Alberta RCMP are also investigating after the NDP filed a complaint.Jason Kenney was the first leader of Alberta's United Conservative Party, and served as premier from 2019 to 2022. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)Kenney posted on the social media platform X on Tuesday that he is retaining legal counsel for advice about the alleged posting of his personal information, calling it "outrageous" and "potentially dangerous."Kenney’s post said he has previously received threats from people involved with the separatist, anti-vaccine and far-right movements in Alberta. Kenney noted that he believes the "broader data breach may also affect vulnerable Albertans, including victims of domestic violence, journalists, activists, judges and other public servants for years to come."UCP caucus says staff routinely at political meetingsUCP caucus communications director Shanna Schulhauser said in a statement that staff “regularly attend events of political interest,” including the April 16 Centurion Project meeting.She did not immediately reply to questions about how many staff attended the meeting, or who they were.The UCP caucus staff member named in the NDP's screenshots did not immediately answer messages from CBC News on Tuesday afternoon.“The organizers of this meeting were adamant that the data being used was obtained legally,” Schulhauser’s statement said. “At the time, the staff observing the meeting had no reason to believe the website in question was unlawful.”The statement also said Nenshi should have alerted the provincial government when he first found out about the suspected data breach. Nenshi said the NDP told the RCMP about the Centurion Project meeting on April 17.An Alberta RCMP spokesperson said they first started acting on the tip on April 20, and spent 10 days reviewing it before opening an investigation on April 30.UCP spokesperson Dave Prisco said in an email that party president Rob Smith was attending a fundraising event in Red Deer at the time of the Centurion Project meeting.“Naheed Nenshi is using a common name to drag our president through the mud,” Prisco wrote. “Rob Smith was never at that meeting, nor has he been at any Centurion meeting.”During question period at the legislature on Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith said she learned about the concerns regarding voter information through the media. She said it was news to her that any UCP caucus staff members were at the Centurion Project meeting.“I think the member opposite is asking for us to politically interfere in an independent investigation, and we will not do that,” she said.Smith said it will only be possible for authorities investigating the privacy breach to hold people accountable for any wrongdoing if politicians stay out of it.
