The Ottawa Citizen reports that the firm asked citizens in the Montreal riding of Mount Royal if they would consider supporting the country’s Conservative party candidate should Cotler step down.

MRIA executive director Brendan Wycks (pictured) said that the association had received two complaints from members of the public and one member company. He said: “The member of the association alleged that Campaign Research has violated our code of conduct and good practices … that the activity they have done here tends to bring our industry into disrepute.”

Campaign Research partner Nick Kouvalis, whose partner Richard Ciano is running for the presidency of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party, hit back saying: “We’ve done tens of millions of dials through our call centre and there’s never been any complaint launched against us. We’re in the business of getting Conservatives elected and ending Liberal careers. We’re good at it.”