Readers may recall I attended some presentations at the 2009 Canadian Political Science Association meeting in Ottawa last May, and wrote about Professor Elizabeth Gidengil's paper on the 2008 Election in English Canada.

In updating my Links page just now, I noticed that the full paper ("The Anatomy of a Liberal Defeat" in PDF) is now available on the Canadian Election Study website. It's a lengthy work which I haven't had time to fully review yet, but looks to be well worthwhile. Most notably, it answered my question from last May about whether the drop in Liberal support amongst visible minorities from 2004 to 2006 was a percentage drop or a drop in the number of percentage points (it was the latter), and so I'm updating my old post accordingly.

Professor Gidengil told me in May that the full dataset for each Canadian Election Study is made available through their website on the first anniversary of each election, and so the data for the 2008 election will be available mid-October, 2009.

It's usually in SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) format, and so not for the faint of heart. Better to read the academic publications, and leave that kind of number-crunching to the folks with the expensive statistical software, I say.

Labels: 40th General Election, Data Analysis, Election Resources

On Friday morning, I attended a presentation on the first data from the 2008 Canadian Election Study, given by Professor Elisabeth Gidengil of McGill University at the Canadian Political Science Association annual meeting at Carleton University.

[UPDATE: (August 30, 2009) The full paper is now available online as a PDF.]

Echoing the title of her 2002 book "Anatomy of a Liberal Victory", Friday's talk was entitled "Anatomy of a Liberal Defeat". With her kind permission, I'm going to try and cover the main points of the paper here. For those who don't know, the Canadian Election Study collects survey data before and after every general election, for academic study. The data is made publicly available one year after the election, and thus the 2008 data (in SPSS format) will be available at the CES website on October 14, 2009.

Professor Gidengil and her co-authors use a "multi-stage analysis" to examine the data: since the factors that affect voter choice are closer in time to the vote than longer-term demographic variables, they add the variables into the analysis in stages. Of course individuals' demographic characteristics don't change, but their effects can change over time, and this was certainly one of the main findings of the 2008 election survey.

Three main factors are argued to lie behind the Liberals' unsatisfactory results in 2008 (at least outside of Quebec, as that province will be reported on in a later paper):

1. First, the data point to significant losses in support for the Liberal Party amongst two main groups in the last election:
• Visible minorities - Liberal support dropped by 14% in this demographic group between the 2000 and 2008 elections, the first wave to the NDP in 2006, and the next wave to the Conservatives in 2008. [Although I was writing quickly ... it could have been that they dropped 14 percentage points over this time period, rather than 14%. UPDATE: It dropped by 14 percentage points, according to the actual paper which is now available online (PDF).]
  
• Catholics - Liberal support dropped by 24% in this demographic group [but subject to the same reporting caveat as above; UPDATE: it actually dropped by a "massive" 24 percentage points, the actual paper clarifies] over the same time period. Once the almost exclusive domain of the Liberal party (possibly for class reasons as well), by 2006 Catholics were as likely to vote Conservative as Liberal, and by 2008 they were more likely to do so. Nevertheless Catholics are still less likely to vote Conservative than Protestants are.
• The change in Catholics has occurred more rapidly than with visible minorities, but is more striking amongst Christian fundamentalists. However, their original move away from the Liberals did not appear to be the result of same-sex marriage as an issue, but rather the very strong impact of the so-called "sponsorship scandal" (2004-->2006). Only afterwards (2006-->2008) did moral issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage emerge as important motivators for this group.
• Gidengil suggests that there may be a new voter cleavage emerging, in which the older cleavage of Protestant vs. Catholic is being replaced by Fundamentalist vs. Secular.
  
2. Second, the Liberals have across the last four elections lost their head start over their competitors in "Party ID" (i.e., answers to a question that asks something like 'thinking of federal politics, which party do you normally feel closest to').
• In 2000, the Liberals were far ahead of all others;
• By 2004, the newly-merged Conservative party was up in Party ID, as was a reinvigourated NDP; while the Liberals started to drop;
• In 2006, they were tied with the united Conservative party; and
• By 2008, the Conservatives were ahead of the Liberals on this question, although not by enough to give them a huge head start either.
• One-third of Liberal partisans in 2004 no longer considered themselves Liberals in 2008.
• Also, in 2008 one-third of the remaining Liberal sympathizers nevertheless voted Conservative.
  
3. Third, the Liberals didn't own a single election/policy issue in the last election. In fact, Professor Gidengil and her co-authors claim that "But for the economic downturn, the Liberals would have suffered a worse defeat in 2008".
• The "Green Shift" was viewed as hurting the economy. Randomly interspersing that policy description with the term "Carbon Tax" in the survey, moreover, proved that the latter was perceived as even more damaging to the economy than the former. Gidengil called it a "strategic blunder" for them to focus so much attention on the Environment, which did not appear as a priority issue amongst the voters surveyed. The policy suffered from "bad timing and was poorly explained," she maintained.
  
• The two leading issues, meanwhile, were Healthcare (owned by the NDP, along with Social Welfare issues) and the Economy (owned by the Conservatives).
• The Liberals did not place first as the best managers of ANY issue in the 2008 survey, and only placed a very distant second to the Green Party on the Environment, barely ahead of the NDP.
• On the question of Leadership, both NDP Leader Jack Layton and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper were rated ahead of Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion. It is interesting that a positive evaluation of Jack Layton did not have an effect on voting Liberal, however; "luckily for the Liberals," she adds.
  

The good news? Liberals were the overwhelming second choice of Conservative voters. However, the most popular choice for Liberals and NDPers are each other, so the Liberals should be wary, Gidengil says. The big strike against the NDP is its weak positioning on the economy, however.

Still, these findings argue that the Liberal Party needs to do more than just change its leader and dump the Green Shift to turn things around, Gidengil believes. They have to rebuild their partisan base.

Labels: 40th General Election, Census Data, Data Analysis, Ethnic Communities, Liberals

The NDP's campaign return has now been posted at the Elections Canada website, and shows national campaign spending of 83.8% of their party election expense limit -- higher than the party has ever spent in a general election, but still some 16 percentage points short of their previous commitment to spend the national limit.

The NDP spent more than the Liberals on Broadcast advertising, and a remarkable $4 million dollars on Jack Layton's Leader's Tour, up from $3.6 million in 2006 and more than even the Conservatives spent for the Prime Minister's campaign travel plans. The NDP reportedly planned to purchase the most expensive carbon offsets (their 2006 tour required some $60,000 worth), but the amount of those offsets like other details of any party's campaign spending is not contained in their election campaign returns, so we have no way of knowing how much of the increase they accounted for. The party also spent a sizable chunk of its election budget on opinion research, consistent with its previous campaign budgets.

I also need to make a big Mea Culpa here, because I've just realized that in my rush to complete the previous post, I accidentally transposed a few numbers in my reporting of the categories of spending by the Liberal party. I previously wrote:

Liberal spending on both Broadcast Advertising and Polling in 2008 represents a substantial decline from 2006, although National Office costs increased. Salaries declined in favour of Professional Services, a similar trend to that already noted for the Conservatives.

... which should be revised as follows ...

Liberal spending on both Broadcast Advertising and Polling in 2008 represents a substantial decline from 2006, although Other Advertising expenditures increased. Salaries declined in favour of Professional Services, a similar trend to that already noted for the Conservatives.

I apologize for any inconvenience this error may have caused, and have written separately to alert several bloggers who wrote about these figures (Steve V at Far and Wide, the Jurist at Accidental Deliberations (twice), and Mark Taylor at Report on Greens).

Note that the other parties return comparisons are also reproduced below (and corrected, where necessary) from two earlier posts.

National Campaign Expenditures by Party and Category, 2008 General Election

CATEGORY	Lib ($)	NDP ($)	Grn ($)	BQ ($)	Cons ($)
Ads - Rad/TV	5,827,650	7,071,205	1,579,104	2,377,418	10,266,344
Ads - Oth	2,213,049	1,373,790	248,091	402,646	327,685
Leader's tour	2,481,430	4,043,031	83,960	578,906	2,474,333
Polls	828,447	1,303,098	88,247	168,136	274,240
Salaries	1,181,479	1,701,003	115,404	501,745	866,261
Prof Services	351,104	52,537	409,405	79,188	1,785,037
Travel	439,143	377,810	74,030	371,349	57,820
Natl Office	650,007	624,115	194,488	20,709	449,423
Other Off	559,544	267,301	3,070	379,507	2,917,437
TOTAL (%)	14,531,853 (72.6%)	16,813,890 (83.8%)	2,795,800 (14.2%)	4,879,604 (96.3%)	19,418,580 (97.1%)
LIMIT	20,014,303	20,063,430	19,751,413	5,066,811	19,999,231

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Liberal Party

CATEGORY	1997 GE($)	2000 GE($)	2004 GE($)	2006 GE($)	2008 GE($)
Broadcasting	970699	662450
Television	2838083	3508420
Ads - Rad/TV			7578406	8126305	5827650
Ads - Oth	2959048	3522138	2589017	1332572	2213049
Leader's tour	1697242	2283346	2836782	3387399	2481430
Polls			641515	1057992	828447
Salaries	573160	799542	1076300	1709670	1181479
Prof Services	143974	197021	252967	138261	351104
Travel	453586	429913	468934	364856	439143
Natl Office	547897	382620	313532	645978	650007
Rent, etc	78446	57227
Admin	698278	426455
Fund-raising	284597	253466
Misc	2131	2576
Other Off			847075	684097	559544

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, NDP

CATEGORY	1997 GE($)	2000 GE($)	2004 GE($)	2006 GE($)	2008 GE($)
Broadcasting	44103	288344
Television	1965750	1268563
Ads - Rad/TV			4388233	4816375	7071205
Ads - Oth	33001	385705	1044464	1085300	1373790
Leader's tour	1056638	1612521	2453019	3605420	4043031
Polls			1361146	1226071	1303098
Salaries	924190	907744	1259572	1287474	1701003
Prof Services	15102	67245	19702	51537	52537
Travel	143580	206202	307743	264912	377809
Natl Office	679465	451003	974407	1040412	624115
Rent, etc	52238	81816
Admin	879585	931559
Fund-raising	183072	133883
Misc	0	0
Other Off			210646	148025	267301

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Green Party

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	0	0
Television	0	0
Ads - Rad/TV			25,568	6,485	1,579,104
Ads - Oth	0	497	150,366	133,604	248,091
Leader's tour	0	0	11,873	96,450	83,960
Polls			30,228	1,498	88,247
Salaries	0	1,280	217,374	438,102	115,404
Prof Services	0	944	20,276	77,577	409,405
Travel	0	947	9,414	16,779	74,030
Natl Office	0	0	33,081	116,229	194,488
Rent, etc	0	0
Admin	0	12,997
Fund-raising	0	0
Misc	0	1,082
Other Off			0	24,255	3,070
TOTAL (%)	0 (0.0%)	17,747 (0.4%)	498,179 (2.8%)	910,979 (4.9%)	2,795,800 (14.2%)
LIMIT	3,154,376	4,888,177	17,593,925	18,278,279	19,751,413

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Bloc Québécois

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	8,430	0
Television	10,650	4,049
Ads - Rad/TV			1,443,407	1,434,561	2,377418
Ads - Oth	375,472	451,218	977,687	844,669	402,646
Leader's tour	109,572	375,999	389,041	577,432	578,906
Polls			56,761	57,512	168,136
Salaries	478,805	522,512	678,143	558,132	501,745
Prof Services	147,207	62,609	274,539	145,365	79,188
Travel	47,042	81,533	108,603	113,643	371,349
Natl Office	237,042	255,095	81,997	80,934	20,709
Rent, etc	7,671	14,466
Admin	75,572	76,787
Fund-raising	132,034	124,425
Misc	0	0
Other Off			497,353	715,382	379,507
TOTAL (%)	1,629,497 (54.0%)	1,968,692 (58.2%%)	4,511,087 (98.2%)	4,527,630 (96.8%)	4,879,604 (96.3%)
LIMIT	3,019,087	3,383,175	4,591,748	4,676,677	5,066,811

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Conservative Party (incl. Reform Party and Canadian Alliance pre-2004)

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	7,096	6,918
Television	2,784,615	6,248,111
Ads - Rad/TV			5,875,764	8,786,108	10,266,344
Ads - Oth	411,037	1,312,042	1,402,240	388,284	327,685
Leader's tour	1,157,709	1,018,363	3,780,432	3,014,367	2,474,333
Polls			341,260	697,105	274,240
Salaries	113,670	179,655	549,975	874,434	866,261
Prof Services	0	32,697	3,900,105	2,741,413	1,785,037
Travel	202,157	377,501	57,485	90,354	57,820
Natl Office	153,680	72,945	467,964	668,330	449,423
Rent, etc	13,460	159,878
Admin	21,545	179,615
Fund-raising	56,764	81,923
Misc	0	0
Other Off			909,033	758,783	2,917,437
TOTAL (%)	4,921,733 (57.9%)	9,669,648 (76.5%)	17,284,257 (98.2%)	18,019,180 (98.6%)	19,418,580 (97.1%)
LIMIT	8,503,058	12,638,257	17,593,925	18,278,279	19,999,231

Labels: 40th General Election, Election Expenses, NDP

[UPDATE: Since this post was first written, I discovered that I made a couple of transposition errors in the category data entries for the Liberal Party. They've been corrected now as follows: Leader's Tour should have read 2,481,430, rather than 828,447; Polls should have read 828,447 rather than 650,007; National Office should have read 650,007 rather than 439,143; Salaries should have read 1,181,479 rather than 351,104; and Professional Services should have read 351,104 rather than 2,481,430. Boy do I feel dumb. At least the totals and the main category of Broadcast Advertising were correct.]

The Liberal Party's 2008 Election Campaign Return confirms that the party was massively outspent by the Conservatives in last fall's general election campaign, particularly in the categories of Broadcast Advertising, Leader's Tour, and Other expenses, although they did pay more for Polling and Professional Services Other Advertising.

According to the party's campaign return, which has just been posted on the Elections Canada website, Liberals spent just 72.6% of their national spending limit, confirming the mid-campaign reporting by John Ivison, who wrote in last September 27th's National Post that party officials had decided to strongly curtail national spending, even though they had planned to spend the limit as late as six weeks before.

The only outstanding major party return is that of the NDP, which had decided to spend the national limit for the first time ever. [UPDATE: A party spokesperson told La Presse Canadienne tonight that they were submitted on Thursday, but had not as yet been posted on the Elections Canada website.] All registered party election campaign returns are due on Tuesday April 14.

Note that the other parties return comparisons are also reproduced from an earlier post below.

National Campaign Expenditures by Party and Category, 2008 General Election (corrected)

CATEGORY	Lib ($)	NDP ($)	Grn ($)	BQ ($)	Cons ($)
Ads - Rad/TV	5,827,650		1,579,104	2,377,418	10,266,344
Ads - Oth	2,213,049		248,091	402,646	327,685
Leader's tour	2,481,430		83,960	578,906	2,474,333
Polls	828,447		88,247	168,136	274,240
Salaries	1,181,479		115,404	501,745	866,261
Prof Services	351,104		409,405	79,188	1,785,037
Travel	439,143		74,030	371,349	57,820
Natl Office	650,007		194,488	20,709	449,423
Other Off	559,544		3,070	379,507	2,917,437
TOTAL (%)	14,531,853 (72.6%)		2,795,800 (14.2%)	4,879,604 (96.3%)	19,418,580 (97.1%)
LIMIT	20,014,303	20,063,430	19,751,413	5,066,811	19,999,231

Liberal spending on both Broadcast Advertising and Polling in 2008 represents a substantial decline from 2006, although National Office Other Advertising costs increased. Salaries declined in favour of Professional Services, a similar trend to that already noted for the Conservatives.

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Liberal Party (corrected)

CATEGORY	1997 GE($)	2000 GE($)	2004 GE($)	2006 GE($)	2008 GE($)
Broadcasting	970699	662450
Television	2838083	3508420
Ads - Rad/TV			7578406	8126305	5827650
Ads - Oth	2959048	3522138	2589017	1332572	2213049
Leader's tour	1697242	2283346	2836782	3387399	2481430
Polls			641515	1057992	828447
Salaries	573160	799542	1076300	1709670	1181479
Prof Services	143974	197021	252967	138261	351104
Travel	453586	429913	468934	364856	439143
Natl Office	547897	382620	313532	645978	650007
Rent, etc	78446	57227
Admin	698278	426455
Fund-raising	284597	253466
Misc	2131	2576
Other Off			847075	684097	559544

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Green Party

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	0	0
Television	0	0
Ads - Rad/TV			25,568	6,485	1,579,104
Ads - Oth	0	497	150,366	133,604	248,091
Leader's tour	0	0	11,873	96,450	83,960
Polls			30,228	1,498	88,247
Salaries	0	1,280	217,374	438,102	115,404
Prof Services	0	944	20,276	77,577	409,405
Travel	0	947	9,414	16,779	74,030
Natl Office	0	0	33,081	116,229	194,488
Rent, etc	0	0
Admin	0	12,997
Fund-raising	0	0
Misc	0	1,082
Other Off			0	24,255	3,070
TOTAL (%)	0 (0.0%)	17,747 (0.4%)	498,179 (2.8%)	910,979 (4.9%)	2,795,800 (14.2%)
LIMIT	3,154,376	4,888,177	17,593,925	18,278,279	19,751,413

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Bloc Québécois

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	8,430	0
Television	10,650	4,049
Ads - Rad/TV			1,443,407	1,434,561	2,377418
Ads - Oth	375,472	451,218	977,687	844,669	402,646
Leader's tour	109,572	375,999	389,041	577,432	578,906
Polls			56,761	57,512	168,136
Salaries	478,805	522,512	678,143	558,132	501,745
Prof Services	147,207	62,609	274,539	145,365	79,188
Travel	47,042	81,533	108,603	113,643	371,349
Natl Office	237,042	255,095	81,997	80,934	20,709
Rent, etc	7,671	14,466
Admin	75,572	76,787
Fund-raising	132,034	124,425
Misc	0	0
Other Off			497,353	715,382	379,507
TOTAL (%)	1,629,497 (54.0%)	1,968,692 (58.2%%)	4,511,087 (98.2%)	4,527,630 (96.8%)	4,879,604 (96.3%)
LIMIT	3,019,087	3,383,175	4,591,748	4,676,677	5,066,811

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Conservative Party (incl. Reform Party and Canadian Alliance pre-2004)

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	7,096	6,918
Television	2,784,615	6,248,111
Ads - Rad/TV			5,875,764	8,786,108	10,266,344
Ads - Oth	411,037	1,312,042	1,402,240	388,284	327,685
Leader's tour	1,157,709	1,018,363	3,780,432	3,014,367	2,474,333
Polls			341,260	697,105	274,240
Salaries	113,670	179,655	549,975	874,434	866,261
Prof Services	0	32,697	3,900,105	2,741,413	1,785,037
Travel	202,157	377,501	57,485	90,354	57,820
Natl Office	153,680	72,945	467,964	668,330	449,423
Rent, etc	13,460	159,878
Admin	21,545	179,615
Fund-raising	56,764	81,923
Misc	0	0
Other Off			909,033	758,783	2,917,437
TOTAL (%)	4,921,733 (57.9%)	9,669,648 (76.5%)	17,284,257 (98.2%)	18,019,180 (98.6%)	19,418,580 (97.1%)
LIMIT	8,503,058	12,638,257	17,593,925	18,278,279	19,999,231

The Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party has also filed a return showing total spending of $7,341.65 out of a limit of $272,020.62 based on the 4 Ontario ridings in which they ran candidates. And the Communist Party's return reports total spending of $11,389.27 out of a limit of $1,599,036.87 based on the 24 ridings where they fielded candidates.

Labels: 40th General Election, Election Expenses, Liberals

The campaign election expense returns of the Green Party and Christian Heritage Party have now been published. Guess which party spent more (see end of post for the answer)?

As part of our continuing look at election spending patterns of the registered parties, below you will find a comparison for the main parties for 2008, followed by a comparison of their spending patterns over the past 5 elections, for each of the major parties we've heard from thus far.

You'll note that in 2008, the NDP had the highest national spending limit, because it was the only party to have a nominated candidate on the ballot in all 308 ridings.

National Campaign Expenditures by Party and Category, 2008 General Election

CATEGORY	Lib ($)	NDP ($)	Grn ($)	BQ ($)	Cons ($)
Ads - Rad/TV			1,579,104	2,377,418	10,266,344
Ads - Oth			248,091	402,646	327,685
Leader's tour			83,960	578,906	2,474,333
Polls			88,247	168,136	274,240
Salaries			115,404	501,745	866,261
Prof Services			409,405	79,188	1,785,037
Travel			74,030	371,349	57,820
Natl Office			194,488	20,709	449,423
Other Off			3,070	379,507	2,917,437
TOTAL (%)			2,795,800 (14.2%)	4,879,604 (96.3%)	19,418,580 (97.1%)
LIMIT	20,014,303	20,063,430	19,751,413	5,066,811	19,999,231

As expected, the Green Party's campaign budget tripled from 2006 to 2008. Most of the hike was seen in the Advertising budget, especially for the broadcast media, along with substantial increases in spending on Polling ("Elections surveys or other surveys or research"), non-Leader Travel, and the party's National Office.

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Green Party

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	0	0
Television	0	0
Ads - Rad/TV			25,568	6,485	1,579,104
Ads - Oth	0	497	150,366	133,604	248,091
Leader's tour	0	0	11,873	96,450	83,960
Polls			30,228	1,498	88,247
Salaries	0	1,280	217,374	438,102	115,404
Prof Services	0	944	20,276	77,577	409,405
Travel	0	947	9,414	16,779	74,030
Natl Office	0	0	33,081	116,229	194,488
Rent, etc	0	0
Admin	0	12,997
Fund-raising	0	0
Misc	0	1,082
Other Off			0	24,255	3,070
TOTAL (%)	0 (0.0%)	17,747 (0.4%)	498,179 (2.8%)	910,979 (4.9%)	2,795,800 (14.2%)
LIMIT	3,154,376	4,888,177	17,593,925	18,278,279	19,751,413

The Bloc Québécois moved to emphasize broadcast advertising as well in 2008, borrowing from nearly every other line item but Polling and Travel to do so.

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Bloc Québécois

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	8,430	0
Television	10,650	4,049
Ads - Rad/TV			1,443,407	1,434,561	2,377418
Ads - Oth	375,472	451,218	977,687	844,669	402,646
Leader's tour	109,572	375,999	389,041	577,432	578,906
Polls			56,761	57,512	168,136
Salaries	478,805	522,512	678,143	558,132	501,745
Prof Services	147,207	62,609	274,539	145,365	79,188
Travel	47,042	81,533	108,603	113,643	371,349
Natl Office	237,042	255,095	81,997	80,934	20,709
Rent, etc	7,671	14,466
Admin	75,572	76,787
Fund-raising	132,034	124,425
Misc	0	0
Other Off			497,353	715,382	379,507
TOTAL (%)	1,629,497 (54.0%)	1,968,692 (58.2%%)	4,511,087 (98.2%)	4,527,630 (96.8%)	4,879,604 (96.3%)
LIMIT	3,019,087	3,383,175	4,591,748	4,676,677	5,066,811

In looking at the spending patterns of the Conservative Party, we can perhaps understand why some of their competitors hiked their advertising budgets, because the Conservative Party has spent more than half its budget in the last two campaigns on Advertising in the broadcast media, again raiding other budget lines to augment their spending in this category. It's notable that the line item for Polling is substantially less in 2008 when the party fought the election as a sitting government seeking re-election, than it was in 2006 and 2004. On the other hand, there was a significant increase in spending on Other expenses in 2008.

National Campaign Expenditures by Election and Category, Conservative Party (incl. Reform Party and Canadian Alliance pre-2004)

CATEGORY	1997 GE ($)	2000 GE ($)	2004 GE ($)	2006 GE ($)	2008 GE ($)
Broadcasting	7,096	6,918
Television	2,784,615	6,248,111
Ads - Rad/TV			5,875,764	8,786,108	10,266,344
Ads - Oth	411,037	1,312,042	1,402,240	388,284	327,685
Leader's tour	1,157,709	1,018,363	3,780,432	3,014,367	2,474,333
Polls			341,260	697,105	274,240
Salaries	113,670	179,655	549,975	874,434	866,261
Prof Services	0	32,697	3,900,105	2,741,413	1,785,037
Travel	202,157	377,501	57,485	90,354	57,820
Natl Office	153,680	72,945	467,964	668,330	449,423
Rent, etc	13,460	159,878
Admin	21,545	179,615
Fund-raising	56,764	81,923
Misc	0	0
Other Off			909,033	758,783	2,917,437
TOTAL (%)	4,921,733 (57.9%)	9,669,648 (76.5%)	17,284,257 (98.2%)	18,019,180 (98.6%)	19,418,580 (97.1%)
LIMIT	8,503,058	12,638,257	17,593,925	18,278,279	19,999,231

Once the other parties' returns are posted, I'll be updating the first table, and adding comparisons for them as well.

Now, as mentioned in the opening paragraph, the Christian Heritage Party has also filed its return, reporting expenses of $48,096.14 out of a limit of $3,789,711.98 (which is based on the number of voters in the 59 ridings in which they fielded candidates).

Labels: 40th General Election, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Election Expenses, Greens

The Conservative Party has reported spending 97.1% of their election expense limit for the 2008 election ($19,418,579.89 of a maximum $19,999,230.60), while the Bloc Québécois reported spending 96.3% of theirs ($4,879,603.59 of a limit of $5,066,811.33), according to returns they filed with Elections Canada.

These amounts are roughly in line with both parties' spending in 2006 and 2004; in the Conservatives' case down slightly from 98.6% of the limit in 2006 and 98.2% of the limit in 2004, and for the Bloc also down slightly from 96.8% in 2006 and 98.2% in 2004, but up from the 58% and 54% they spent in 2000 and 1997 respectively (links open their pages at the Pundits' Guide for comparison).

Registered political parties have another two weeks to submit their election campaign financial returns for the 2008 General Election, but the Bloc Québécois and Conservatives seem to be early birds, as the other parties' returns are not yet posted (links open their return details at the Elections Canada site).

By the way, Elections Canada has slightly redesigned the search functionality at its Financial Reports database, and introduced for the first time the party election campaign reports into that web application.

Labels: 40th General Election, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Election Expenses

As previously reported here, candidates in the 2008 General had to submit their election campaign returns by midnight on Friday, February 13. It's taken me about a month to get around to getting that data into the Pundits' Guide database, and during that time Elections Canada has entered nearly 1,200 candidate returns ("as submitted") into their database.

Still outstanding are 440 / 1601 candidate returns, as described in the table below.

Some interesting trivia (although, remember, this is based only on preliminary data and is subject to change after the Elections Canada review):

• Of the top 30 "big spenders" (measured by who spent the greatest percent of the candidate spending limit in their riding), 25 were Conservatives, 2 were Liberals, 2 were Bloquistes, and 1 was NDP. Fewer than half of the big-spenders (14/30) were elected.
• Based on their returns entered so far, it appears that on average the Green Party's candidates more than doubled their riding spending from 2006 (7.0% vs. 2.6% of the spending limit, on average), while the Liberal Party's candidates spent on average a bit less (55.3% vs. 61% in 2006, down from 73% in 2004) as did Bloc candidates. Average spending by Conservative candidates was also up a bit (from 69.7% to 74.6%), while the average riding spending of New Democrat candidates stayed almost exactly the same (26.8% vs. 26.0%).
  
• If a candidate was duly nominated with Elections Canada, but then withdrew before the deadline and in sufficient time for another candidate from the same party to be nominated, it turns out that they BOTH have to file candidate campaign returns. For example in Toronto Centre, ON, former Conservative candidate Chris Reid and eventual Conservative candidate David Peter Gentili have BOTH filed candidate returns showing election expenses and transfers from party headquarters. Weird, huh!

Now, neither one spent the limit, and indeed their expenditures totalled together do not exceed the limit either. But what if they did? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm guessing that since the limit applies to a candidate and not to a party's campaign in a certain riding, so long as both remained under the limit no provision of the Elections Act would be violated. Anyways I have a question in to Elections Canada on that one, and will report back on their response.

For a refresher on how to find that candidate financial data in the Pundits' Guide, see here.

I'll be writing and programming about financial data a bit more in coming weeks, so stay tuned.

# of Candidate Returns either Nil, or Not Submitted to, or Not Yet Reviewed by, Elections Canada; by Party, 2008 General Election

Party	Party Name	2008 GE
Oth	Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party	0 / 4
Oth	Canadian Action Party	9 / 20
Oth	Christian Heritage Party	8 / 59
Oth	Communist Party of Canada	0 / 24
Oth	First Peoples National Party	5 / 6
Oth	Libertarian Party of Canada	4 / 26
Oth	Marijuana Party	2 / 8
Oth	Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada	5 / 59
Oth	neorhino.ca	3 / 7
Oth	Newfoundland and Labrador First Party	2 / 3
Oth	People's Political Power Party	0 / 2
Oth	Progressive Canadian Party	1 / 10
Oth	Western Block Party	1 / 1
Oth	Work Less Party	0 / 1
Ind	Indep/No Affil	23 / 71
BQ	Bloc Québécois	13 / 75
Lib	Liberal Party of Canada	104 / 307
NDP	New Democratic Party	120 / 308
Cons	Conservative Party of Canada	70 / 307
Grn	Green Party of Canada	70 / 303

Labels: 40th General Election, Election Expenses, Election Finance

A few weeks ago, the first of the Third Party Election Advertising Returns became available and were reviewed by David Akin and myself.

At the time, I compared the list of available returns against the list of registered third parties and noticed a large number of returns not as yet posted. Well, since then, Elections Canada has posted the full list of registered third parties at the third party returns page, indicating which of them are available online and which are not yet.

Most of the missing returns I was interested in are now available, such as (reprising the list from my earlier blogpost):

• the group Avaaz.org which conducted significant election advertising around environmental issues
• other notable absences are the DeSmogBlog and Kevin Grandia, who registered and were responsible for the VoteForEnvironment.ca website, along with
• numerous labour councils, and
  
• the 5 third parties registered to advertise in Saanich-Gulf Islands who shared a Victoria lawyer as their registered agent

I haven't been through every return in detail (there are 63 listed third parties, 12 of which do not appear to have returns available online as yet), to see if the Tourism Industry Association is still the big spender of the group, for example, or if Gwyn Morgan is still the largest individual contributor.

But I can say that, based on eyeballing the full list, my earlier observation that B.C. was the hotbed of third party registration and activity holds up even more than before, inasmuch as just about half of all registered third parties were from British Columbia, whether as:

• individuals advertising in the Chinese-language media and targetting ridings such as Richmond or Vancouver Kingsway, or as
  
• labour councils, trade unions or labour centrals, or as
  
• citizens' groups targetting Saanich – Gulf Islands on issues of taxation, or
• social advocacy groups highlighting seniors' issues, childcare or the environment

I wonder what it was about B.C. ... whether it was a few individuals getting things going, or whether there is an equivalent system provincially that folks are used to participating in? If you have any ideas about this, do take a second to comment and share your perspective.

Labels: 40th General Election, Third Party Advertising

The Ottawa Citizen's Glen McGregor has been reviewing the candidates' campaign returns for 2008, and has published an article looking at the Advertising expenses of the returns currently available, which readers will be interested in.

As yet, I have not been able to free up enough time to methodically enter the returns into the Pundits' Guide database myself, but I'll get there.

Labels: 40th General Election, Election Expenses

A few weeks ago, I posted some details of the candidate returns of the major party leaders ... well all except Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, whose return had not yet been posted by Elections Canada.

Well, Harper's return is available now, and so here is the full table for comparison (or to view the original returns yourself, click here):

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

As expected (see my analysis in the earlier blogpost), Harper's campaign return was not significantly different from Dion's, since both hold very safe seats: their riding associations were able to raise most of the money ahead of time, they spent a smaller percent of limit than Layton and Duceppe (Harper spent 66.3% vs. Dion's 55.5%), and neither one received a transfer of funds from the national party. Harper's local campaign raised about three times as much as Dion's during the election, however ($20,840 vs. $6125). Only Elizabeth May's local campaign raised more, in fact.

Labels: 40th General Election, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Election Expenses, Election Finance, Greens, Liberals, NDP