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August 22, 2022 • 5 hours ago • 3 minutes read • 25 comments UCP leadership candidate Daniel Smith speaks at a campaign rally in Chestermere on Tuesday 9 August 2022 Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia
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A Calgary woman received a series of harassing voicemails and multiple calls from people claiming to be volunteers for Daniel Smith’s UCP leadership campaign, though Smith called it a “malicious prank” by people pretending to be affiliated with her.
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Cassandra Raugust said she started getting calls from people who told her they were with Smith’s campaign Friday night. In short clips of the numerous calls and voicemails she received and later posted on social media, two self-proclaimed volunteers separately called her a communist, racist and other names after she told them she did not support Smith.
“This is just ridiculous. I’ve never been a fan of Daniel Smith; I didn’t buy a membership,” she said. “I have said much worse. I called out (UCP) for everything and I’ve never been harassed like this…it’s weird. It’s just all weird.”
Smith, considered the favorite in the race to replace Jason Kenney as UCP leader and premier of Alberta, took to social media Monday morning to denounce the calls as fake after they gained traction online. She did not mention who she thought was behind the calls.
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“This is clearly a malicious prank by someone trying to pretend to be involved in our campaign. This is fake. Our call center uses a publicly available campaign number, not a private number. It is a good idea to refrain from jumping to conclusions as dirty tactics seem to be common these days,” Smith said in a written statement to Postmedia.
About that voicemail joke. Clearly, someone is pretending to be part of our campaign. This is fake. Our call center uses a public number and was also closed during these calling hours. It’s probably a good idea to refrain from jumping to conclusions from dirty tactics. #abpoli
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) August 22, 2022
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Raugust said she received the first call Friday night, telling the caller she did not support Smith and asking to be removed from the call list. But the man called her repeatedly, once calling her a “communist racist s–t” before immediately hanging up.
The calls then continued Sunday, when Raugust answered a call from a woman who thanked her for supporting Smith and the proposed sovereignty act and invited her to a “donor appreciation party.” Raugust again asked not to be contacted, but the woman said she would call when Raugust was “in a better mood.”
The woman then called back and left a voicemail.
“I checked with my supervisor to make sure your phone number was removed from our list and in fact, as it turns out, communists are not allowed at the event,” the woman said in a recording of the voicemail posted on Twitter.
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“Please don’t come, nobody wants to see you there and they don’t want the vaccine either. . . Have a wonderful evening and please don’t ruin other people’s lives.’
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Raugust said the repeated calls left her shaken. Being a business owner, she said she often gets calls from customers without caller ID, so she always answers her phone regardless of whether a name is displayed.
“I feel anxiety. i feel scared I feel worried,” she said.
“I was a victim of random violence five years ago. . . I suffered a severe brain injury and it took me a long time to feel safe again. And I can tell you that the feeling I had then, I still have now.”
While their phone numbers were blocked, one caller gave a call-back number listed in the Yellow Pages as a catering business, and the other offered a “complaint line” number that leads to a local restaurant.
mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @michaelrdrguez
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