Rick Orman is shown in this undated handout photo. A.JAYSON SCHULTZ/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The campaign team for an Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful claims it was the victim of a cyber attack – a mass reporting of its e-mail as spam that froze its system for two days.
The team for Rick Orman, a former cabinet minister who left politics for 18 years before mounting his comeback bid this year, says invitations to a Calgary dinner were sent out Monday through its campaign account, which is hosted – along with its VoteRickOrman.com website – by Calgary-based Shaw Communications.
The e-mail was sent to what the campaign believes to be the Calgary region portion of the PC party's supporter list, which is provided to all six leadership candidates by the party. It's a list of thousands of recipients.
The error was noticed Tuesday. Shaw officials say the e-mail was flagged automatically as spam, triggering a freeze of the entire Orman system, including staff e-mails, and diverting the e-mail to junk or trash folders. It cited two factors: the message arrived in dummy mailboxes set up to filter spam, and was also reported as unwanted spam by an unknown number of PC party recipients.
Both issues raise questions. If the official party list of donors and supporters includes dummy mailboxes, then it's likely all candidates would have reported problems. No others have, even those who send far more e-mail than Mr. Orman.
As such, the question will likely settle on which PC members, and how many, flagged the e-mail as spam in sufficient numbers to activate Shaw's automatic filter and effectively shut down Mr. Orman's e-mail communications, which were reactivated by Shaw on Wednesday afternoon.
Other campaigns say their own emails bounced back due to an out-of-date list. The question with the claim by Mr. Orman, who a recent poll put behind the pack, is whether another campaign coordinated supporters to flag his material as spam.
"Clearly, we have been attacked. This is not a fluke. We've been attacked," Pat Walsh, the co-manager of Mr. Orman's campaign, told The Globe and Mail. "On so many levels, this is huge. Whoever did it, it's beautifully executed."
In an interview earlier Wednesday, he pointed a suspecting finger at supporters of two of the five rival campaigns – those of Alison Redford and Ted Morton. In interviews later in the day, Mr. Walsh stepped back and said he didn't want to make allegations without proof.
Nonetheless, both the Redford and Morton campaigns denied involvement.
"That's just absolute nonsense. Someone over there is hallucinating," said Sam Armstrong, Mr. Morton's campaign manager. "I wouldn't even know how to do that," added Stephen Carter, Ms. Redford's campaign manager.
Mr. Orman's campaign said the freeze had a crippling effect – two days of all e-mail communication, between staff and supporters alike, was lost before Shaw reactivated the account Wednesday afternoon. Shaw couldn't confirm the PC list would now receive Mr. Orman's campaign e-mails.
"We've been given no guarantees this could not happen again," Mr. Walsh said.
Amid the uncertainty, the Orman camp claims Shaw refuses to hand over control of the rights to VoteRickOrman.com. As such, the campaign now has two unenviable choices – either press on with its current website and e-mail system while hoping its messages will get through to the entire PC list, or start anew with another system and replace all its advertisements, brochures and merchandise.
There are just five weeks to go before the first ballot in the hotly contested race, the winner of which will immediately become Premier.
The company acknowledged its slow response in responding to Mr. Orman's complaint, but emphasized it was an automatic filter.
"It wasn't done with any malice at all. It was just done as sort of normal operating procedure," said John Piercy, vice-president of operations in Alberta for Shaw. "It wasn't something that was done with political motive at all."
Shaw is a consistent supporter of the PC party, with the company or family giving $36,475 between 2004 and 2009, Elections Alberta records show. Mr. Walsh, however, says Shaw dragged its feet in responding. "If [brothers]Jim Shaw or Brad Shaw don't want to take our calls, maybe they'll take them when they're coming from the premier's office," Mr. Walsh said.
Mr. Orman is a wealthy oilman who is the only candidate to not be a serving or recent MLA, and has handed the case over to his lawyers. He's firmly on the right flank of the candidates, along with Mr. Morton, while the other four are all more centrist.
The company says the e-mail addresses of those who reported Mr. Orman's e-mail as spam wouldn't be released, citing privacy laws.
"Somebody got us, and got us good," Mr. Walsh said, adding: "We intend to pursue this vehemently. This does not add up."