Elections Canada Clarifies Filing Process
From a news release just added to the Elections Canada website:
As of a minute ago, the Liberal Party's return was still not posted. They had until midnight Tuesday to submit it, and were not granted an extension. Thus, as we previously assumed, it must be in the process of getting ready to be posted.Registered Political Parties Submit 2008 Fiscal Returns
OTTAWA, Thursday, July 2, 2009
- The deadline for registered parties to file financial transaction returns for 2008 was midnight, June 30, 2009. These returns are reports on contributions, loans, transfers, by-election expenses and unpaid claims. Party financial statements are also included with the returns.
- The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada may grant a deadline extension if a political party applies for one before the statutory deadline. As of June 30, 2009, the following political parties have applied for and been granted an extension:
- Christian Heritage Party of Canada
- First Peoples National Party of Canada
- Libertarian Party of Canada
- Progressive Canadian Party
- As soon as possible after they are received, Elections Canada posts the returns for 2008 in a searchable database at www.elections.ca.
Elections Canada is an independent body set up by Parliament.
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Labels: Elections Canada, Liberals, Party Finance
posted by The Pundits' Guide at
11:22 AM
3 Comments:
I never thought the LPC was 'broke'. Like a number of close observors, I did think that the LPC seemed to have a debilitating debt load, and did quite a bit of spinning to cover for that. This is apparently not true.
When this 2008 filing came in, I was looking at trends in the LPC financial statements since the sea changes brought on by Chretien's changes to election financing. And I have some comments that follow from the following two key observations.
** Accumulated debt- despite many appearances to the contrary during the last couple years- was never more than a couple million $$$$. [Which would not normally be considered a significant debt load given the size of the LPC budget.]
** Corollary point: the current increase in fundraising by the LPC- also despite appearances to the contrary- has only resulted in a modest return to an earlier financial “plateau” the LPC was at- pre-Dion, but after the changes that are causing the Liberals so much trouble. And the jury is still out on whether that return to the ‘plateau’ will be consolidated… let alone whether they are poised to move on up.
The LPC is a high overhead organization that requires at least $15million a year just to remain in steady state- with very little pre-election advertising, limited polling, little to invest in organizing, etc.
In the context of that high essentially fixed overhead, the fundraising drop of 2007 and 2008 led to an accumulating operating deficit, which in turn was the backdrop to a surprising late triage of about $4M out of the 2008 election budget.
Along with some other indicators, this greatly contributed to the sense many of us had that the LPC ‘spinocracy’ was hiding something: among other things, that the bailout on crucial late campaign advertising would mean that the debt had to be more than the mere “million or two” claimed.
But it would appear that the overarching reality of LPC finances is simply this: high fixed expenses, barely adequate fundraising that sometimes even doesn’t meet that standard, and almost no maneuvering room .
So little maneuvering room that what would appear to others to be a pretty small debt of a couple million, was sufficient to get the officers of the good ship Liberal to pitch cargo overboard.
At a more or less fixed expense level of $15M (allowing for no ‘extras’), the LPC now have to take in $8M in contributions annually, just to remain at breakeven.
Having raised almost $5M in the first half of 2009 that $8M might seem assured. But the first quarter contributions were VERY heavy on those individuals already at or near the annual limit of $1100. And the Q2 fundraising has also been anchored at the big events bringing in those large and mostly one time contributions (for the year at least). There is a definite bottom to that barrel.
The LPC knows it can only stabilize, let alone grow, with a sustainable donor capability rooted in the legions of small donors they have lacked, and they have yet to show any progress on that front. So even achieving $8M in 2009 contributions to breakeven, is still something that remains to be seen.
Contingent as maintaining breakeven still is for the LPC- it is still not enough to provide for a full spending limit election campaign. [Albeit, if they have no debt, they can, unlike last year’s campaign, at least choose to go into debt a couple million for the campaign.]
That is a MUCH shorter leash than the NDP works on- let alone comparisons made to the Conservatives.
Postscript to that...
By comparison to the LPC's requirement of $8M in contributions required to remain solvent.... the NDP only requires a little over $2million.
Not to mention the collateral of a free and clear building worth several million dollars, while the LPC has no significant collateral to offer.
Unquestionably, the NDP can reach the floor of $2M, and easily does more than that EVERY year... much more easily than does the LPC reach its minimum requirement of $8M.
Maybe I should update my estimates from the other week, because they included guesses on 2008 spending, but we have the real numbers now. Food for thought, but I'm going to plough away on some other data entry tasks first.
As always, thanks for your detailed comments.
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