I'm sorry to rather directly disagree with a well-regarded member of the Press Gallery, but this story on the 2nd quarter fundraising reports by the registered parties is just wrong:

The federal Tories slid to second place in party contributions for the second quarter of 2009 — which might help explain the recent election talk of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Returns filed with Elections Canada show that for the three-month period to the end of June, the Conservatives attracted $3,957,662 in contributions, ahead of their take for the same period last year, which was about $3.5 million.

Unfortunately the reporter in question misunderstands the party reports, and cites the totals for central fundraising + intra-party transfers from riding associations. This is like comparing apples to oranges; like adding the change you receive when purchasing an item with cash, to your salary, and then summing them together as your income.

The parties' quarterly reports only require the reporting of transfers from riding associations INTO the central party coffers, but alas do not report on the transfers the other way (i.e., from the central party OUT TO the ridings), which are only reported on at the end of the year. The correct figure to cite might be NET transfers or even the total of central party + riding fundraising. But including transfers in only one direction is misleading, and particularly so in the post-election period where loans, advances, rebates and other accounting issues between central parties and ridings are being settled out.

Thus, counting only the political contributions, the Conservatives are slightly ahead of the Liberals. Including the riding transfers, the Liberals are ahead of the Conservatives, but this total doesn't signify much more than the total amount of different subtotals on the quarterly reports.

In any event, this reporter was not the only one to make the mistake, as a similar error was made earlier this past weekend on the CBC TV Bureau "Political Bytes" blog. However, others who should know better are already tweeting the erroneous information around. Thanks to a reader for drawing the clipping to my attention.

In the very near future, readers of the Pundits' Guide will have a much easier reference on party finance to consult, but until then just remember: you can't add fundraising numbers together with intra-party transfers for a given quarter and claim that one party is ahead of another and have it mean anything significant.

Labels: Party Finance