The Tories are downplaying their new campaign manager’s alt-right past—but he drove Ezra Levant’s business strategy

But Ezra Levant’s online opinion site has attracted particular acrimony thanks to a litany of colossally unwise moves, even by Levant’s own admission: one of his most front-facing stars, Faith Goldy, travelled to Charlottesville, Virginia, to report favourably on the alt-right demonstrators and to appear on an avowedly neo-Nazi podcast; several of its big-name acts flew to Israel to make anti-Semitic jokes and call for a crusade redux; and Levant himself tried to offer hush money to some disgruntled workers to shut up and go away.

In the eye of the growing chaos was Hamish Marshall, a corporate director of the Rebel and a long-time Levant ally. Marshall’s newest gig, announced this week, is campaign manager for the federal Conservative Party. Andrew Scheer bestowed the honour on Marshall after Marshall helped propel the Saskatchewan MP to the position of leader for the second-place party this summer.

But Scheer is already being dogged with questions about the appropriateness of tapping a man so close to the Rebel’s death star. When the questions popped up again this week, Scheer had a less-than-confident answer.

“I didn’t ask Hamish about every client he had,” Scheer said in response to a question from the Globe and Mail. “He has a variety of clients. He’s a small-business owner himself, and I asked him to do a job and he helped me out on my campaign.”

The Conservative Party, which did not respond to a request for comment from The Walrus, told the Globe that Scheer was, in fact, aware of Mashall’s involvement with the far-right website. Marshall confirmed to the newspaper that he had worked on Scheer’s leadership campaign from the Rebel’s office—the very office where Scheer showed up for an interview last November.

While Levant might be, increasingly, a household name for those in the know, Marshall is decidedly a more behind-the-scenes kind of guy. Levant tried to play down his role to the Globe. He referred to the former director of his company as an IT guy. “That is a technical role, with no editorial input whatsoever,” Levant said.

But Marshall—who has previously worked on strategic planning for former prime minister Stephen Harper—wasn’t just a contract technician. Marshall was at the core of the Rebel’s business strategy and their aggressive campaign to scare up new readers, supporters, and donors.

Marshall’s Torch Agency has worked with the Rebel since Levant first set up the therebel.media site. The agency boasts that it takes a “holistic” approach to managing its clients’ affairs. That means everything from research polling to microtargeting, website design, book publishing, site design, and fundraising. They list the Conservative Party of Canada and three provincial conservative parties as clients. Much of that work is done through NationBuilder, a platform that allows political organizations to track and target their supporters. The application can manage email lists, websites, and donation campaigns. Both the Rebel and the Conservative Party often use NationBuilder.