Dean Del Mastro

Early life and career

Del Mastro was born to an Italian Canadian family in Peterborough, began high school in Lakefield, and graduated from the Adam Scott Collegiate and Vocational Institute. He graduated from the Odette School of Business at the University of Windsor and holds an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree. The Del Mastro family founded an automobile dealership that now sells RVs. Del Mastro had been a supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada, but he has said he became disillusioned with the party after the 1993 federal election.

Political career

Del Mastro won the Conservative nomination for Peterborough over six other contenders in May 2005, defeating former party nominee James Jackson by only eight votes on the final ballot. He was elected in the 2006 federal election, narrowly defeating his Liberal Party opponent. The Conservatives won a minority government in this election, and Del Mastro entered parliament as a backbench supporter of Stephen Harper's administration. He was re-elected with an increased majority in the 2008 election, as the Harper government increased its seat total but fell short of a majority.

He was appointed as parliamentary secretary to the minister of Canadian Heritage on November 7, 2008. According to his website, he was also the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Sport. He was the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Cultural issues

After the 2006 election, Harper charged Del Mastro with coordinating the Conservative Party's outreach to Lebanese Canadian voters. Del Mastro planned to participate in a parliamentary delegation to the Middle East organized by the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations in August 2006, during the period of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. He withdrew from the trip at the last minute, and there are conflicting reports as to the reasons for this decision. Some charge that the Prime Minister's Office pressured him not to participate in a trip that would challenge the government's pro-Israel line, although Del Mastro denied this and cited security concerns.

Del Mastro spoke against a Private Member's Bill introduced by Liberal Member of Parliament Massimo Pacetti in 2010 that called on the government to issue an official apology for the internment of Italian Canadians in World War II. Del Mastro argued that the bill was poorly drafted and could leave the government vulnerable to lawsuits, and said that most Italian Canadians were satisfied with an informal apology issued by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney twenty years earlier. The bill was approved by the House of Commons, without Conservative support.

Passenger rail service

In 2007, Del Mastro lobbied the Harper government to reopen a passenger train service link from Peterborough to Toronto that was cut by Via Rail seventeen years earlier. He estimated that the track upgrades would cost $150 million and that the service would be used by nine hundred people daily. In February 2008, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced that his government would reopen the line. Although locally popular, this plan was widely criticized as impractical, improperly planned, and designed for political gain. Some editorials noted that the line would travel through several Conservative ridings, including Flaherty's own. A 2010 study commissioned by the provincial and federal governments estimated that capital costs for the project would run between $541 million and $1.5 billion. Del Mastro criticized these figures and accused the study's creators of bias, while acknowledging that the project would probably not move forward if assessed solely on the basis of that one report. In 2011, Del Mastro promised that the first passenger train would leave Peterborough on July 1, 2014.

Del Mastro has also led a non-partisan House of Commons Rail Caucus and has lobbied for a high-speed link connecting Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Social issues

Del Mastro is a social conservative. In 2006, he supported an unsuccessful government motion that would have reopened the parliamentary debate on same-sex marriage (which has been legal in Canada since 2005). He has also taken part in anti-abortion rallies on Parliament Hill, including one organized by the Campaign Life Coalition in 2007.

Robocall scandal

Del Mastro was charged as being responsible for the Conservative response to the Robocall scandal. He has called the robocall scandal "baseless smears." He has asked Elections Canada if it had leaked details around the robocalls. Elections Canada replied such an accusation was smearing Elections Canada by indicating that details of the robocall scandal were purposefully leaked.

During the 2011 federal election, in Dean Del Mastro's Peterborough riding, robocalls were made under the name "Jeff". They originated from Jeff Westlake, the Conservative campaign manager in the riding. Voter confusion resulted, as the Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament was also named Jeff, and issued a statement to clarify he was not involved.

During the election, Del Mastro's campaign employed the firm, Campaign Research, paying them $22,000. This firm has been associated with a seminar promoting voter suppression tactics, tactics borrowed from the U.S. Republican Party. The founding members of Campaign Research organized a seminar in co-ordination with the Manning Centre. The tactics taught at this seminar were later used in the 2011 federal election to illegally dissuade voters from voting. These tactics were also used by Campaign Research in Irwin Cotler's riding falsely claiming that Cotler was going to resign.

2008 election overspending investigation, and 2014 conviction

In June 2012 Elections Canada was investigating Del Mastro for overspending during the 2008 elections. The investigation surrounds a payment of $21,000 made by a personal cheque to Ottawa-based polling firm Hollinshed Research Group for which Del Mastro was not reimbursed, exceeding his personal spending limit of $5,000. Del Mastro has insisted he has not broken any election law and claimed that the $21,000 cheque was for a riding-mapping software called GeoVote that Holienshed intended to launch, and not for telephone calls to constituents during the campaign. Del Mastro has refused to meet with Elections Canada officials. The NDP has called for the matter to be handled by the Director of Public Prosecution, and RCMP Commercial Crimes Unit.

In June 2013, Del Mastro, speaking in Parliament and protected from defamation law, accused Frank Hall, a witness in the Elections Canada investigation, of having "concerning details" in his background that required investigation. Subsequently, Frank Hall wrote to Andrew Scheer, Speaker of the House of Commons complaining Del Mastro “gratuitously slandered” him. Hall wrote "I am attempting to comply with my legal duties, as a law-abiding Canadian, Mr. Del Mastro’s statements to you appear to be aimed at dissuading me from doing so." Hall asked Scheer for protection from further verbal attacks from Del Mastro "so that I, and other witnesses can continue to carry out our legal duty to comply with subpoenas and to cooperate with public investigations of national importance, without fear of persecution or reprisal." Hall further requests that Scheer order Del Mastro to apologize and withdraw his remarks.

Del Mastro was charged by Elections Canada with four breaches of the Elections Canada Act on September 26, 2013. The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in jail with a $5,000 fine.

Dean Del Mastro's cousin, David Del Mastro, is also under investigation by Elections Canada for violations of elections spending rules. David Del Mastro is alleged to have created a scheme whereby 22 of his employees, working for Deltro Electric, made donations of $1,000 to Dean Del Mastro's campaign and the Peterborough Conservative Party riding association in exchange for a reimbursement of $1,050.

On October 31, 2014, Justice Lisa Cameron of the Ontario Court of Justice found Del Mastro guilty of violating the Canada Elections Act by overspending his elections limit and attempting to cover up the violation. As a result of the convictions, Del Mastro resigned in a speech to the House of Commons on November 5, 2014. Del Mastro was scheduled to be sentenced on January 27, 2015.

During the sentencing hearing held on January 27, 2015, Dean Del Mastro's new lawyer argued that the judge should set aside the previous election overspending guilty verdicts. On February 18, 2015, Justice Cameron dismissed Del Mastro's application for a mistrial. He was scheduled to be sentenced on February 19, 2015.

At a hearing on 23 February 2015, prosecution lawyer Tom Lemon stated that Del Mastro’s activities “were planned and deliberate and involved a high degree of sophistication”. He asked for a sentence of at least nine to twelve months. “Mr. Del Mastro does not seem to get the consequences of his actions — or the seriousness of those actions.” On June 25, 2015, Justice Lisa Cameron, calling Del Mastro's crimes an "affront" to Canadian democracy, sentenced him to a month in jail, four months house arrest, and 18 months probation. She also banned him from holding any public office while serving his conditional sentence, and from running federally for a period of five years. Del Mastro appealed the conviction. On 13 September 2017, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld his convictions, dismissing his appeal.

Other

Del Mastro was a Conservative representative on the House of Commons Ethics Committee in 2007 and took part in the committee's work on the controversial business dealings between Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney.

In 2009, he spoke against a proposal that would have allowed Canada's broadcasters to bill cable and satellite companies for transmitting their signals.

In 2012, Del Mastro claimed in the House of Commons that the Liberal Party used an American telemarketing firm during the 2011 federal election when it was in fact a Canadian company. It was later revealed that his own campaign was one of 14 Conservative Party campaigns to enlist the services of Ohio-based Front Porch Strategies. Del Mastro maintains that none of these activities are tied to the so-called "Robocalls" controversy.

In 2012, veteran CBC parliamentary reporter Kady O'Malley wrote a scathing article accusing Del Mastro of going "in camera" too often thereby contradicting his own party policy of openness and transparency.

While addressing criticism of the digital locks provision within proposed copyright legislation under Bill C-11 (formerly C-32, and C-61 and C-60 before that), Del Mastro compared format-shifting to the act of buying socks from a retailer, only to return later and take a pair of shoes without paying.

On October 28, 2014, in a Facebook posting, he made allegations of sexual blackmail against an unnamed member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Provincial politics

When John Tory resigned as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in 2009, Del Mastro was briefly rumoured as a candidate to become his successor. Nothing came of this, and he later announced his support for Christine Elliott's candidacy. Elliott is the widow of Del Mastro's former Tory colleague in the House of Commons the former Finance Minister the late Jim Flaherty.

Ethics committee

In March 2013, New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to remove Del Mastro from the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Del Mastro has missed 26 consecutive meetings since June 2012. Prior to his last meeting in June the Ottawa Citizen revealed Elections Canada was investigating Del Mastro for alleged campaign overspending during his 2008 re-election campaign. Del Mastro's annual salary is $173,565 but does not include extra pay for sitting on the committee.

Out of politics

After his conviction, Del Mastro was sentenced to one month in jail, of which he served the night of June 25, 2015 before being granted bail pending an appeal to be heard in January 2016. Del Mastro did not run in the 2015 federal election.

He became an executive director of Deltro Solar, part of the Deltro Group whose president is Dean Del Mastro's cousin, David Del Mastro. As executive director, Del Mastro was behind a plan to build a $26-million solar panel manufacturing plant and solar farm in Barbados scheduled to be completed in April 2016.

On April 5, 2016, Dean Del Mastro had his sentence affirmed by Ontario Judge Bryan Shaughnessy during the appeal of Del Mastro's sentence. Justice Shaughnessy called the former Conservative MP's contravention of election spending limits and deliberate attempts to avoid detection a "grave offence," and ordered Del Mastro to serve the balance of his original sentence.