Doug Ford says he has contacted the police after a list of email contacts belonging to Mayor Ford appear to have ended up in the hands of Karen Stintz’s campaign.
Ford, who is the mayor’s brother and campaign manager, told CP24 that Stintz’s campaign sent out a mass email on Wednesday, which went to many Ford supporters who had not provided their contact information to anyone outside of the mayor’s office.
According to Doug Ford, “numerous supporters” then contacted the mayor’s re-election campaign to look into how their contact information was compromised.
Police have confirmed to CP24 that officers from 52 Division went to city hall on Friday morning to meet with Ford, though little is known about their investigation.
“Someone, and I am not pointing fingers at anyone, but someone has received the information and has given or sold the information to the Karen Stintz campaign,” Ford said. “We have a serious issue at hand of theft and I can't tell you how many rules have been broken on this one.”
Ford said he believes the data was taken from the mayor’s office sometime between Sept. 24 and Wednesday.
A total of 10 employees have access to the mayor’s office, though the locks were changed after Rob Ford announced a leave of absence on April 30 to seek help for substance abuse. Most of those employees have been working out of Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly’s office in the interim.
Asked by reporters whether the theft of the data may have been an inside job, Doug Ford refused to speculate.
"Someone has extracted this information and I am not too sure who but we are going to narrow down the suspect,” he said. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. There is always a trail when it comes to emails.”
In addition to meeting with police, Ford said he has also met with City Manager Joe Pennachetti, and representatives from the IT and HR departments to discuss the alleged security breach.
Ford, however, said he has no intention of contacting Stintz or her campaign.
“That’s not my job,” he said. “It’ll be up to the police.”
Stintz’s campaign responds
In a statement issued shortly after Ford made his allegations, Stintz’s press secretary Lauren Souch said that the Stintz campaign does accept contact lists from its supporters, though Souch made no reference to the data from the Ford campaign.
“We have people supporting Karen who have supported other candidates in the past, and we accept lists that are given to us,” Souch wrote. “If people on our list don’t want to support Karen or don’t want to receive emails they can simply click on unsubscribe.”
Stintz is not expected to address the allegations herself.
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