Conservative Party fundraisers who telephone party members to solicit donations have identified themselves as calling from the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa when they begin their requests for financial support, a prominent member of the party in Vancouver and a former Conservative MP say.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) declined to look into the claims and referred questions to a Conservative Party spokesperson, who denied the allegations.

But a Vancouver consultant who also teaches statistical science at the University of British Columbia insists he has received calls each year since 2007—when he joined the party—by callers seeking contribution pledges who have told him they were calling from the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa.

The claim emerged as part of the aftermath of the government's controversial decision to eliminate the mandatory long form of the 2011 census and replace it with a voluntary national household survey that a range of businesses, voluntary organizations and governments strongly oppose. Documents Industry Minister Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) tabled at the House of Commons Industry Committee last week revealed even the government was aware before making the decision that Statistics Canada expected less than 50 per cent of the households that will receive the survey will respond to it, virtually eliminating its usefulness as a reliable detailed snapshot of Canada's makeup and societal patterns.

Jonathan Berkowitz, who consults as a statistician in Vancouver and also teaches statistics at the University of British Columbia business and medicine classes, told The Hill Times he received one of the donation solicitations, in which the person asking for financial support for the Conservative Party said she was calling from the Prime Minister's Office, in the midst of a campaign he was mounting against the government decision to eliminate the mandatory long form of the census questionnaire.

"It was the same day that I had a letter to the editor published in the Vancouver Sun criticizing the decision about the census," Mr. Berkowitz said. "I think it was probably that afternoon that I got a call from a woman saying she was calling from the Prime Minister's Office and it was about making another donation to the party. She had no idea that she was stepping on a hornet's nest."

Mr. Berkowitz, a former president of the Vancouver Jewish Federation who says information from the long-form census is crucial for his organization, as well as other Jewish communities across the country and a range of other ethnic communities and groups, said the telephone fundraising requests began almost immediately after he met Prime Minister Harper when he was supporting a University of British Columbia colleague who was contesting a federal byelection in the district of Vancouver-Quadra, B.C.

"No sooner had we had that opportunity to say hello and have our picture taken, it might have been the next day, or possibly two after that, I received a call from the PMO asking if I would like to make a donation," he said. The telephone pitch last month came as concern rose about the census decision and was doubly irritating because he had earlier asked the callers to hold off until the end of the year, he said. "Those come regularly, more regularly than I would like, the phone calls that is, and I had gone on record telling them don't call me until the end of each calendar year, I'll make my decision then."

Mr. Berkowitz said he remembers only that the calling numbers showed Ottawa's 613 area code on his telephone call display panel, but he cannot recall the other digits.

"When I was in a happier mood I was quite happy to engage them in conversation and say 'yes I would be supportive but to a limited degree because I wanted to wait and see what else was happening,'" he told The Hill Times. "This last call I told them exactly what I thought about the (census) issue, and if they were doing their job properly they should report that back to either the party or the Prime Minister. I said 'tell the Prime Minister, tell the minister they've got one unhappy party member who will not be making donations in the future, at least pending a suitable resolution to the problem.' She was a little shell-shocked, she didn't expect to get that."

Garth Turner, the former Conservative MP for Halton, Ont., confirmed he also was told about Conservative fundraising solicitations allegedly coming from the Prime Minister's Office when he was an MP.

"Yes I have heard of it," he said. "When I was a member, I had constituents who used to be members of the Conservative party and who absolutely reported that to me, that 'yes I had a call from the PMO looking for money.' Now whether it's happened in the past two years, I haven't been there, I haven't been involved. I don't know that."

Andrew MacDougall, Prime Minister Harper's press secretary, denied fundraising calls originate from the Prime Minister's Office.

"The prime minister's office does not solicit donations, I suggest you direct your questions to the party," he said, later asking a reporter to provide evidence that party fundraisers might be using the name of the office to embellish their solicitations. "Send me some proof that this is being done and I'll take time out of my day to make a few calls," he said in an email.

Party spokesperson Fred DeLorey said party fundraisers do not say they are calling from the Prime Minister's Office when they place calls across the country, but he confirmed solicitations are made on lines using the 613 area code.

Liberal MP Paul Szabo, chair of the House of Commons Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee, said it would be illegal for fundraisers to place calls from the PMO, and unethical for donor solicitations to be made at party headquarters on the pretext the calls were originating from the Prime Minister's Office.

"If it was just using it for leverage, the words, that in itself is an unethical practice," said Mr. Szabo. "Is it against some law? I don't know."

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