UPDATED: Elections Canada Deregisters 10 Delinquent Riding Associations
[Welcome National Newswatch readers!]
UPDATE: A better methodology for collecting this data has led me to revise the registered EDA counts below to 307 for the Conservatives, and to 34 for the Christian Heritage Party. Looks like my earlier approach saw me miss a page of 25 or something. My apologies. It did seem a little strange that the governing party didn’t have a nearly-full slate, didn’t it.
Elections Canada has deregistered 10 delinquent riding associations, effective May 31, 2010.
Three of the riding associations belonged to the Liberal Party, including Timmins – James Bay, ON – a seat they had held until the 2004 general election – and two others in rural Alberta.
One belonged to the Conservative Party, in the Laval-area seat of Alfred-Pellan, QC, where they had significantly outspent both the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals in the last election, on the strength of a series of loans. Ironically, the Liberal association in the same riding was already involuntarily deregistered in late 2006.
The six other associations belonged to the Green Party, including Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca, BC, the federal equivalent of their provincial leader’s home seat, and which is adjacent to party leader Elizabeth May’s chosen riding of Saanich – Gulf Islands, BC; along with another riding – Windsor – Tecumseh, ON – whose Green Party association had already been voluntarily deregistered once before in 2006.
A riding association affiliated with the Marijuana Party was also involuntarily deregistered in January, 2009 just after the last election. 16 other riding associations were involuntarily deregistered between the redistribution in 2004 and March, 2008.
Involuntarily deregistered electoral district associations, by party and date, since the 2008 general election
| Party | Riding | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Lib | Timmins – James Bay, ON | 31-May-10 |
| Lib | Crowfoot, AB | 31-May-10 |
| Lib | Vegreville – Wainwright, AB | 31-May-10 |
| Grn | Charlottetown, PE | 31-May-10 |
| Grn | Don Valley East, ON | 31-May-10 |
| Grn | St. Catharines, ON | 31-May-10 |
| Grn | Chatham-Kent – Essex, ON | 31-May-10 |
| Grn | Windsor – Tecumseh, ON | 31-May-10 |
| Grn | Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca, BC | 31-May-10 |
| Cons | Alfred-Pellan, QC | 31-May-10 |
| Marj | South Surrey – White Rock – Cloverdale, BC | 31-Jan-09 |
The deregistrations are recorded in the Elections Canada website’s database of “registered associations” (also known as “electoral district associations”, EDAs, or historically as “riding associations”). They were also published earlier this month in the Canada Gazette.
Riding associations can voluntarily deregister themselves under s.403.2(1) of the Elections Act, or they can be deregistered by their party headquarters under s.403.2(2).
However, associations that fail to file their annual financial returns (s.403.19), or to meet other requests for information under other sections of the Act (s.403.18), run the risk of being deregistered by Elections Canada. Failure to respond to inquiries about these omissions (403.21(1)), will result in the party association being involuntarily deregistered by the Chief Electoral Officer (403.21(4)).
Deregistered associations must then provide their final financial statements, along with all missing financial and other returns, to Elections Canada within six months of the date of deregistration (s.403.26), and they can no longer accept political contributions.
Of the 85 riding associations deregistered since the last redistribution, 27 have been involuntarily deregistered, 38 disbanded voluntarily, 19 were disbanded by their party headquarters, and one was technically deregistered because its predecessor failed to file the necessary notice to continue after the redistribution.
The number of deregistrations by type and party is shown below, although it should be noted that in many cases those riding association were subsequently reconstituted. That is not the case for any of the most recent deregistrations listed above, however.
Number of EDA deregistrations, by type and party, 2003 Representation Order ridings (2004-2010)
| Dereg EDAs 2004-2010 |
Invol. by EC |
Volunt. by EDA |
Dereg. by Party |
Void at Redist. |
TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOTAL | 27 | 38 | 19 | 1 | 85 |
| Lib | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| NDP | 2 | 4 | 6 | ||
| Grn | 16 | 12 | 15 | 1 | 44 |
| BQ | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Cons | 1 | 1 | |||
| Oth-CAP | 1 | 1 | |||
| Oth-CHP | 9 | 2 | 11 | ||
| Oth-Marj | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| Oth-PC | 1 | 7 | 1 | 9 |
As mentioned above, 36 of these 85 deregistrations have taken place since the 2008 election (11 involuntary by Elections Canada, 13 voluntarily by the EDAs, and 12 deregistered by their registered parties). The other 49 took place earlier, and in many cases those riding associations have reconstituted themselves. Here is a count of currently registered associations by party and province.
Distribution of currently registered EDAs by party and province, as at May 17, 2010 (*counts revised May 27)
| Party | YT | NT | NU | BC | AB | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PE | NL | ALL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 36 | 28 | 14 | 14 | 106 | 75 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 308 | |
| Lib | 1 | 1 | 1 | 36 | 26 | 14 | 14 | 105 | 75 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 305 |
| NDP | 1 | 1 | 36 | 28 | 14 | 14 | 106 | 75 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 307 | |
| Grn | 1 | 1 | 32 | 26 | 4 | 9 | 88 | 55 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 234 | ||
| BQ | 54 | 54 | ||||||||||||
| Cons | 1 | 1 | 1 | 36 | 28 | 14 | 14 | 106 | 74 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 307* |
| CHP | 7 | 3 | 2 | 18 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 34* | ||||||
| CPC | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Marj | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 11 | |||||||||
| PC | 4 | 4 |
As we can see, the [UPDATE: Conservatives and the] NDP has have the best national coverage, followed closely by the Liberals. The Conservatives have local associations organized in some 91% of the ridings, while the Greens are presently covered in 76%.
The Bloc Québécois maintains local associations only in incumbent and one or two other swing ridings, as a rule, running the rest out of party headquarters. Indeed it recently recorded a couple of deregistrations by two local riding associations in eastern Québec, as reported by Raymond Giroux in Le Soleil this past March, notably including Montmagny – L’Islet – Kamouraska – Rivière-du-Loup, QC.
Given the Bloc’s record of electoral success, I suppose this strategy of theirs should not be dismissed. Nevertheless, I’m inclined to keep the parties’ coverage rate in terms of registered local associations as a key performance indicator of party organization, along with the percent of registered local associations who have filed their annual financial reports. Note that the annual riding financial reports are due at the end of May each year.
Of the smaller parties, it’s noteworthy that the Christian Heritage Party is the most widely organized, followed by the Marijuana Party. Just 4 riding associations remain of the Progressive Canadian Party in Ontario, while the Community Party of Canada’s lone riding association is located in Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe’s riding of Laurier – Sainte-Marie, QC and was registered in January of 2008.
The last time I attempted a count of EDAs by party, last year, I estimated based on the number of financial submissions from local ridings. However, the above counts are true counts based on the Elections Canada database of registered associations. Shortly we’ll know how many are behind in filing their financial paperwork.
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A note to my friends in the mainstream media: I always cite your work with links and references when I use it. If you’re going to use this story, why not say “as originally reported by punditsguide.ca”. The other week a number of news organizations appeared to use some of my analysis on quarterly donations by contribution size without credit, which in light of the many complaints we hear from that quarter about how bloggers don’t develop their own research and stories, was quite ironic. One of them is on a network that recently instituted rather a strict policy on reuse of its own online material.
In coming days I’ll be adding the registered local associations to the Pundits’ Guide database, available for searching by riding. This data was quite hard to collect and collate, because the Elections Canada database only presents them 25 at a time, and without any unique identifiers in the markup. It’s always possible that someone could replicate the work assembling this data within an 8-hour workday, and if so more power to you.
Tags: Party Finance, Riding Associations
I’m Unfamilar with what exactly this all means to those ridings . like say in Timmins James Bay where the liberals have allready nominated a candidate . does that mean she’s no longer the candidate or that the riding association can no longer raise funds for the campaign there ? what are the exact consequences of such a decision from elections canada in these ridings ?
You should list the networks that cite without credit!
You have a fantastic site and it should be acknowledged.
Hi RCO, and thanks for the comment.
Ms. Wood is still the Liberal candidate there, and in fact was in the Timmins Times just last month talking about her party’s rural platform.
However, only registered associations may accept political contributions. Unregistered associations may not. A candidate’s official agent cannot issue tax receipts for any contributions received until after the candidate is confirmed by the local Returning Office (which only occurs once an election has been called).
Also, that candidate bank account cannot accept transfers of funds from party headquarters until the candidate’s confirmination by the local Returning Office. Thus the role of the central party and the local official agent becomes paramount.
Individuals have the right to contribution up to $1100 to a party, and up to $1100 to one or more riding associations each calendar year. Not having a riding association registered means foregoing some of that local fundraising room in the preelection period, and more practically also means that there is no local body to act on behalf of the party in that constituency.
I suspect the party’s regional organizers will be taking steps to try and recruit some local supporters to resurrect a new riding association, which entails providing some tombstone data-type documents, along with the preliminary balance sheet. The old riding association will have to wrap up its paperwork as well, under the Elections Act.
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And dear CS, I probably shouldn’t have even said that. Less is more. You are certainly one of my biggest fans, though, which is always warming, and you are never shy with the links, so thank you.
Anyways, at least one news outlet took the suggestion today, which is always appreciated. Thanks i880News.com!
I just wanted to make explicit some aspects or implications of PGs explanation of the role EDAs play in relation to the candidates and actual campaigns.
The public sees the campaigns. The party EDAs are invisible even if they do exist.
The Green Party generally makes sure it has 308 candidates- but it only has a fraction of that in EDAs. And as we see here, there is a lot of attrition among the fraction of Green EDAs that are registered.
As noted by PG, the candidate campaign- what we all see- only exists for the campaign and cannot take funds before the writ is dropped.
The EDA is the sustained organisation. While it has no formal role in the candidate campaign, the personnel of each overlap a great deal.
The 2004 Election Act changes conferred on the EDAs a lot of powers autonomous from the party structures. They issue their own tax receipts- while the party office used to have to do that for them. Cumbersome and expensive.
But with those powers came greater demands on reporting. In the old days an EDA would just go dormant and not be noticed. Not any more.
While an EDA is not required to nominate a candidate and run a campaign, an EDA that exists between campaigns [and not just arising right before the campaign] is a de facto minimum for being in contention at all.
Those are good points Ken. Thank you.
Great work as always, PG. If the MSM don’t give you credit, then more fool them.
As a collector of political trivia, could you enlighten me as to where the four disparate (desperate?) PC riding associations are?
Hi Edmund,
Sorry, I just saw your question now. The 4 Ontario ridings having registered Progressive Canadian Party EDAs are:
* Ottawa South
* Newmarket – Aurora
* London West
* York – Simcoe
Sorry, that was probably an obvious question I should have answered in the post, so thanks for bringing up that point.
The Conservatives’ only riding without an EDA is Portneuf – Jacques Cartier, currently represented by Independent M.P. André Arthur. The NDP is represented locally everywhere but Nunavut. The Liberals have associations everywhere but the 3 deregistered ridings listed above.
The blog of a Green whose information is pretty reliable said 7 EDAs were de-registered in May and June. Dont know if all 7 were on top of the 6 you counted for this blogpost.
And another blogger mentioned one near him that is soon to be de-registered.
While we are on the topic of EDAs- I have been waiting for their annual filings. The deadline was 8 days ago, and they are still just trickling in.
Its a given that a lot would be late. And many, particularly of the GPC apparently, will never file [and be de-resitered in the months ahead].
But both the GPC and NDP are only in the range of half of EDAs filings on-line. And many of those not there are strong EDAs. Even if the other 3 main parties have most of their EDAs in… thats a lot that aren’t in.
Does anyone know if its this same slow trickle the last couple years? And/or when the “real deadline” is [when EC staff start threatening consequences to the laggards]?