Party Leaders' Returns Now (Mostly) Available
As of midnight last Friday February 13, the campaign finance returns of candidates running in the 2008 General Election were due, and they're now starting to be entered into the Elections Canada database for those interested in checking.
Although it will take me some time to get all this data into the Pundits' Guide database, here are some details from the ("as submitted") campaign returns of the Party Leaders whose returns have thus far been entered into the Elections Canada database. Data "as reviewed by Election Canada" will not be available for sometime. To view these 4 candidate return details yourself, click here. I've also added in their riding association's reported asset balances from the end of 2007 (from another Elections Canada database) to help read the returns in context.
Please note that although Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper's return is not yet available on the Elections Canada website, that does not mean his campaign did not meet the filing deadline. I will check back from time to time and update this post once that return becomes available online. [UPDATE: Mr. Harper's return is now posted. I've added the details here, but you can also see my latest blogpost for their analysis.]
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's return looks like the typical return of an incumbent candidate in a very safe seat: the riding association raised most of the funds ahead of time, the campaign spent just 55% of the spending limit, and no funds were transferred to the campaign by the central party office. I would expect Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's return to look similar, given that he received 73% of the vote in his home riding of Calgary Southwest, AB, and his riding association had nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the bank at the end of 2007. [UPDATE: And, yes, that expectation did hold up.]
NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, both in fairly safe ridings (although Layton faced a slightly more lopsided challenge), show fairly typical "take-no-chances" returns for incumbents in fairly safe seats. Layton's campaign spent close to the full limit, while Duceppe's campaign spent just about 85%. Again, they appear to have fairly strong riding associations that could raise and transfer about half the anticipated expenditure level before the campaign had even started. And both, being from smaller parties, appeared to realize the opportunity to raise money during the campaign itself.
Layton slightly outraised Duceppe during the campaign, from significantly more contributors, although to be fair his riding has a slightly higher median after-tax income than Duceppe's according to the 2006 Census: $22.7K vs. $20.5K). Duceppe's campaign received a loan of $41.1K from the central party, which appeared to have been paid off in November after another non-monetary transfer from the party office. I listed it here as a transfer from the party, as that's what it appeared to be, in effect. It looks like the Bloc central campaign had a 50:50 cost-sharing arrangement with the riding.
The surprise for me was Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's return, inasmuch as ... for all the effort that was reportedly going in to getting her a seat in the Commons ... her campaign spent only 69% of the limit, in spite of having $80K (nearly the full amount of the spending limit) transferred to the campaign by the central party office, and of raising more than the other 3 party leaders during the campaign itself. Doing a quick eyeball comparison of her return to Layton's and Duceppe's, her campaign reported significantly less on salary costs than the other two. Her campaign account wound up with a considerable surplus, which will have to be transferred either to the Central Nova Green Party riding association or to the central party, per s.473(2)(a) of the Elections Act.
Although it will take me some time to get all this data into the Pundits' Guide database, here are some details from the ("as submitted") campaign returns of the Party Leaders whose returns have thus far been entered into the Elections Canada database. Data "as reviewed by Election Canada" will not be available for sometime. To view these 4 candidate return details yourself, click here. I've also added in their riding association's reported asset balances from the end of 2007 (from another Elections Canada database) to help read the returns in context.
Please note that although Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper's return is not yet available on the Elections Canada website, that does not mean his campaign did not meet the filing deadline. I will check back from time to time and update this post once that return becomes available online. [UPDATE: Mr. Harper's return is now posted. I've added the details here, but you can also see my latest blogpost for their analysis.]
Selected Details from the 2008 General Election Candidate Financial Returns from the 5 Major Party Leaders
| Stéphane DION | Jack LAYTON | Elizabeth MAY | Gilles DUCEPPE | Stephen HARPER | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Lib | NDP | Grn | BQ | Cons |
| Riding | St-Laurent – Cartierville, QC | Toronto – Danforth, ON | Central Nova, NS | Laurier – Ste-Marie, QC | Calgary SW, AB |
| $ Limit | $ 83858 | $ 82497 | $ 80462 | $ 84641 | $ 92156 |
| $ Spent (% Spent) | $ 46549 (55.5%) | $ 79281 (96.1%) | $ 55482 (69.0%) | $ 71127 (84.0%) | $ 61102 (66.3%) |
| Electors $ Spent / Voter | 76777 $0.60 | 74826 $1.06 | 58863 $0.94 | 79182 $0.90 | 90756 $0.67 |
| Num Votes (Pct Vote) $ Spent / Vote | 25095 (61.7%) $1.85 | 20323 (44.8%) $3.90 | 12620 (32.2%) $4.40 | 24103 (50.2%) $2.95 | 38548 (73.0%) $1.59 |
| $ Riding 2007 Net Assets | $ 63271 | $ 45173 | $ 16734 | $ 54705 | $ 249070 |
| $ Contribs (A) Num Contribs | $ 6125 24 | $ 14656 89 | $ 25411 84 | $ 11500 51 | $ 20840 62 |
| $ From Riding (B) | $ 44000 | $ 42164 | $ 5348 | $ 30000 | $ 45000 |
| $ Raised Locally (A + B) | $ 50125 | $ 56820 | $ 30759 | $ 41500 | $ 65840 |
| $ From Party | $ 0 | $ 21506 | $ 80000 | $ 41260 | $ 0 |
| $ Surplus | $ 7493 | $ 0 | $ 56540 | $ 0 | $ 14702 |
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's return looks like the typical return of an incumbent candidate in a very safe seat: the riding association raised most of the funds ahead of time, the campaign spent just 55% of the spending limit, and no funds were transferred to the campaign by the central party office. I would expect Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's return to look similar, given that he received 73% of the vote in his home riding of Calgary Southwest, AB, and his riding association had nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the bank at the end of 2007. [UPDATE: And, yes, that expectation did hold up.]
NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, both in fairly safe ridings (although Layton faced a slightly more lopsided challenge), show fairly typical "take-no-chances" returns for incumbents in fairly safe seats. Layton's campaign spent close to the full limit, while Duceppe's campaign spent just about 85%. Again, they appear to have fairly strong riding associations that could raise and transfer about half the anticipated expenditure level before the campaign had even started. And both, being from smaller parties, appeared to realize the opportunity to raise money during the campaign itself.
Layton slightly outraised Duceppe during the campaign, from significantly more contributors, although to be fair his riding has a slightly higher median after-tax income than Duceppe's according to the 2006 Census: $22.7K vs. $20.5K). Duceppe's campaign received a loan of $41.1K from the central party, which appeared to have been paid off in November after another non-monetary transfer from the party office. I listed it here as a transfer from the party, as that's what it appeared to be, in effect. It looks like the Bloc central campaign had a 50:50 cost-sharing arrangement with the riding.
The surprise for me was Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's return, inasmuch as ... for all the effort that was reportedly going in to getting her a seat in the Commons ... her campaign spent only 69% of the limit, in spite of having $80K (nearly the full amount of the spending limit) transferred to the campaign by the central party office, and of raising more than the other 3 party leaders during the campaign itself. Doing a quick eyeball comparison of her return to Layton's and Duceppe's, her campaign reported significantly less on salary costs than the other two. Her campaign account wound up with a considerable surplus, which will have to be transferred either to the Central Nova Green Party riding association or to the central party, per s.473(2)(a) of the Elections Act.
Labels: 40th General Election, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Election Expenses, Election Finance, Greens, Liberals, NDP
posted by The Pundits' Guide at
7:13 AM
17 Comments:
Harper's riding has almost a quarter of a million! Sounds like a lot for one riding. Is that really unusual, or have you come across other ridings & parties with that type of money?
The May campaign had more than "significantly less" salaries than the other leaders' campaigns.
And volunteers cannot replace staff functions for management and coordination. The more volunteers a campaign has, the more bang for buck. BUT, those volunteers MUST be coordinated by a staff of people with more than full time hours, and a minimum of previous campaign experience.
The Central Nova Green campaign was a full bore organization. That requires a number of full time campaign staff, some of whom could have minimal experience. But the Campaign Manager and at least one more would have to have a fair bit of experience.
Occassionally one of those people can be a volunteer. But Elections Canada reporting rules are VERY unequivocal that if a person has a paid job, whoever is paying the salary, the campaign has to report it as an expense. The only exception allowed is when the person takes a vacation- out of their normal entitlements [no fig leaf 'special paid 'vacations' allowed].
How likely is it that all the full time staffing in that serious campaign were real volunteers?
They reported TOTAL salaries of $2,800. !?! For a campaign like that, about $20,000 would be the norm.
A normal phenomena in minimal campaigns a party wants to see some results in is to send in a Campaign Manager [bare minimum $3500]. But they don't run campaigns a fraction of what was done in Central Nova.
The May campaign reported 4 people who got under $1,000- the kind of amounts that go as honorariums to people who put in a lot of time but come without previous experience. [And sometimes an amount like that to an Office Manager in a low rent campaign, which this was not.]
Its also worth noting that all the other expenses for the May campaign are similar to those of the other leaders, EXCEPT for staffing, which as noted is radically different.
Duceppe and Layton spent more on advertising, but not categorically more. [And print advertising in Central Nova is far cheaper than in the other markets.] They spent less on office, no surprise in a very depressed small town commercial real estate market.
So everything is comparable, except for the staffing expense it takes to make all of that come together. Which is virtually nill.
Hi Catherine,
I haven't been through them. It's a long-term project of mine to assemble and analyze all that riding association data. Very labour-intensive but I think eventually quite rewarding.
My guess is that people have been quite keen to contribute to the riding associations of a prime minister or cabinet minister over the years, and I believe that's what we'll see in part. For example, Paul Martin's riding association in LaSalle – Émard, QC also showed a balance of nearly $250K at the beginning of 2004. It fell to $8.8K by the end of 2006, however.
In the case of the Calgary Southwest Conservative association, their balance has doubled since 2004. That year they also received a transfer of all or part of the campaign surplus from Stephen Harper's leadership campaign (about $36.5K).
From what we know of the Conservative Party's campaign modus operandi, it doesn't surprise me that emphasis would be placed on local as well as national fundraising.
Also the riding associations of incumbents in any party will tend to place emphasis on pre-election fundraising as well, at least in my experience.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Hi Anonymous 4:55/5:08,
I looked up the Green Party campaign return from the London North Centre, ON by-election campaign just now, and note that very little in salaries and wages were reported there either (about $2200). There aren't returns up from any of the other targetted Green ridings from 2008 yet to check (I quickly looked for Guelph and Van Centre but no luck), but based on Ms. May's two campaigns at least, that might appear to be their party's campaign model.
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
We shall see what the Guelph and VenCentre filings say.
And this may be their model. But if so, it's the model for what they REPORT, not a 'campaign model' per se.
Given that they do not typically spend the limit, I can see that under-reporting expenses on their part would be under the radar.
But there has to be a reason they do it. Its not just some slip of the mind coincidences or 'mental habit' that they just happen to do it this way.
And it is only VERY remotely possible that they have truly run 2 full tilt campaigns, and maybe more, without anyone paying salaries to the people who have been coordinating these complex and professional campaigns. [And to repeat: whoever pays those salaries, Elections Canada requires the reporting of the salaries as an expense.]
Anonymous is blowing smoke up your' ass. I was in London North Centre's campaign office for a couple of days, and there were no paid staffers period. Had they hired a single campaign manager with experience, then Elizabeth would have won, but as it was it was a masterpiece of disorganization.
May has zero real campaign experience, and her closest associates are utterly inept campaigners. To search for some shady practices is silly, when it is readily explained by totally inexperienced people, running expensive but ineffectual campaigns.
Anonymous is clueless, and is searching for clues that are meaningless. Guelph, Vancouver Centre, Bruce Grey Owen Sound, and to a lesser extent 7 or 8 other ridings nationally begin to have a clue. Guelph, and Bruce are the ONLY ones in the whole country, that really put it ALL together. Adrian Carr kind of gets it, but they are still in Political Kindergarten. I only know of 4 or 5 very experienced campaign management types in the GPC, who really understand, and more importantly have experience running full bore campaigns. None of them would be acceptable to Elizabeth, or Adrian, so they muddle along with tyro's and loyal incompetents.
Thanks for the comment and your observations on the London North Centre by-election, BGB. I've been following your own blog, by the way, and your own review of campaign techniques. You reminded me that I wanted to pick up Joe Trippi's book with your review, and it just arrived in the mail the other day!
Now, without wanting to read anyone's mind, perhaps Anonymous was thinking that one couldn't possibly run a campaign with so many volunteers without some paid direction. You seem to be indicating that the optimal arrangement was not followed.
A fellow Green blogger of yours has written some comments at the Accidental Deliberations blog and then his own blogpost on the same topic, though, and believed that central party staff were assigned to Central Nova, if I understand it correctly.
Would it square the circle to say that the typical Green Party campaign model has been, for better or worse in your view, to rely on volunteers for the managerial/co-ordinating roles more so than paid campaign organizers, with Central Nova, NS as the exception, and Guelph, ON and Bruce – Grey – Owen Sound, ON as the best of breed of the rest?
From my perspective, this blog and website are not designed to do investigative journalism or opposition research or anything; they're more to use the data to see what we can learn about the whole process. So, I'm not in gotcha mode, just trying to understand.
Thanks for reading.
I don't know anything about the London Centre campaign and did not claim I did.
But I'm close enough in to Central Nova and to the small world of Nova Scotia politics to say unequivocally that the Elizabeth May campaign there was anything but a seat of the pants just do it with whoever affair.
Not to mention the patient organization out of headqurters for at least a year and a helf before the October election.
Hi Pundit, yeah, the Trippi book is pretty good. Check out what Obama did with it. His online and grassroots campaign was run by three Dean for America graduates. That's the true lesson, integrate the wild viral side with the rational organized side.
I was maybe too abrupt in my prior comment. There were some limited loaners of staff to London North Centre, and I'm pretty sure that this would be the case with Central Nova as well. It's just that I've worked with some of the inner circle before, and they don't really know anything about electoral politics. Some of them are also hostile towards 'outsiders', so there's not much chance they will learn other than from experience. To understand them, you need to realise that to them, the Green Party is about talking policy in between elections, and the narrow confines of their administrative positions. An election will always come as an unpleasant surprise, because it is pushed to the backburner until it actually happens. The distrust of outsiders, plus the lack of experienced campaign managers in the GPC leave them with little will, or ability to bring in some paid talent. If you want to look for electoral success stories in the GPC, look elsewhere. Sooner or later, some ambitous local politician with skills, and support teams will pick up a GPC nomination, and gain national prominence by being the first elected Green in Parliament.
Once again, thanks for your insights BGB. I'll get to the Trippi book once I'm done with Tom Flanagan, and George Lakoff.
(p.s., I'm no 'pundit', just a guide for other pundits ... ;-) )
If you want a indication that there were paid GPC staffers working on the CN campaign, look closer at the individual expenses...
... there you'll see the name of Sharon Labchuk, the GPC's Director of Organizing (paid position) getting a check from the CN campaign for office expenses.
Hello Mark, I can imagine circumstances where the labour of the recipient of an office expense cheque would not be an election expense. Also, it's worth emphasizing to readers that this data is still in the "as submitted to Elections Canada" stage, not in the "as reviewed by Elections Canada". Meantime I appreciate your taking the time to read and comment on this blog.
Hey pundit,
I'm just finishing the Flanagan book now, and it's pretty instructive.I believe that he is deliberately misleading about the CPC tactics, and mechanics. If he isn't then they are much more primitive than I thought. It reads more like a little coterie of moderately skilled operators than a finely tuned political machine. If they really had an awesome DVC system though, he wouldn't be advertising how easy it is to do, would he?
Hello BGB,
The problem is not always one of sophistication ... merely of being well-enough organized to do the very simple work of direct voter contact in a targetted, comprehensive and thorough way. Which, given a large organization that depends on volunteer labour for much of its efforts, as all political parties by definition are, is harder than it looks.
sincerely,
"the guide" (most definitely NOT "the pundit" ;-) )
In the Accidental Deliberations blog I have offered specifics about the possible linkages- that BGB and I have agreed would be infractions of the Act IF they happened- between Nova Scotia Green Party expenditures, and the complete lack of campaign staff expenditures reported by the May campaign or by the 2007 Central Nova Green EDA report that covers part of the period a headquarters been opened and staffed.
If you go there you will see that BGB and I don't agree about much else than it would be illegal IF.... :)
Rather than repeat the arguments here, I'll provide the link.
I am Ken Summers. aka "Anonymous" here because I don't have the patience to make this blogs' identity function work any other way.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/jurist/3144071010626202946/?src=hsn
Thank you for the link, Ken. Since you wrote to me and asked me to make it active, here it is as a hyperlink.
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