Candidate election campaign return data has now been entered and/or updated for the 2006 By-elections, the 2007 By-elections, and the 2008 By-elections.

Moreover I also found the time to add in the information required to link to every candidate's original return details at the Elections Canada website (except for 1997 General Election candidates, since that election's data is nearly impossible to link to directly; sorry).

If you're new to the Pundits' Guide, here's how to find candidate financial data:

• Find your riding of interest, either by
• drilling down through the "Browse Regions" page, or
  
• doing a Quick Search from the left-hand column on any part of the riding name, or by
  
• doing a Quick Search for a candidate of interest on any part of the candidate's name, and then clicking on the relevant riding from the candidate index page.


• From the riding profile page (e.g., let's look at Vancouver Quadra, BC), click on the "Financial Metrics" tab

• If you want to bookmark the page with that tab's data showing, click on the link called "Permalink" at the top-right hand corner of the page (in our example, you'd wind up here)
• Don't forget that candidate financial data displayed in italics at the Pundits' Guide is still in the "as submitted" stage (in our example below, Green Party candidate Dan Grice's return still has not been reviewed by Elections Canada, and so appears in italics)
  
• Now, notice the small Elections Canada icon next to each candidate's name. If you hover your mouse pointer over the icon, it says "Link to Candidate Financial Return at Elections Canada"

• If you click on that icon, it opens the candidate's return details from the Elections Canada website in a new window.
• Unfortunately Elections Canada does not label that page with the candidate's name, but TRUST ME. Select a part of the return you're interested in (e.g., "Part 2a - Statement of Contributions Received"), and click on it. Now, you're away to the races. You can even select a different part of the return from the drop-down list they provide.

Nearly all of the by-election returns are in "as reviewed" state for the 2006 and 2007 by-elections, but there are quite a few still in the "as submitted" stage for the 2008 by-elections candidates, as you can see from the table below.

# of Candidate Returns either Nil, or Not Submitted to, or Not Yet Reviewed by, Elections Canada; by Party and Electoral Event

Party	Party Name	2006 By	2007 By	2008 By
Oth	Canadian Action Party			1
Oth	neorhino.ca			1
Ind	Indep/No Affil	1
Lib	Liberal Party of Canada	1		2
NDP	New Democratic Party		1	2
Cons	Conservative Party of Canada			1
Grn	Green Party of Canada		1	3

Labels: 2_How to Search the Database, Election Expenses, Election Finance, March 17 2008 By-elections, Nov 27 2006 By-elections, Sept 17 2007 By-elections