Tories Tipped the Odds in Ontario Election

An analysis of party financial statements reveals campaign finance and election laws turned the provincial election into a one-horse race

By: Robert MacDermid

Tory changes to the campaign finance and election laws have worked dramatically in their favour while their campaign strategies have undermined the effectiveness of Ontario's laws on campaign spending

  June 6/00 - The 1999 financial statements for Ontario's political parties were released last week by Elections Ontario. The statements reveal some astonishing details about the extent of Progressive Conservative fundraising and expenditures in the year of the 1999 election. Perhaps most importantly, they continue to demonstrate how Tory changes to the campaign finance and election laws have worked dramatically in their favour and how Tory campaign strategies have undermined the effectiveness of Ontario's laws on campaign spending - laws that are designed to ensure that Ontario election campaigns do not become the orgies of spending that are the rule in America.

What was released today?

  Because 1999 was the year of a campaign, there are four separate financial statements. The first set of statements, released on December 3, 1999, six months after election day, related to central campaign spending and fundraising in the three months of the campaign period. Also filed on that day were income and expenditure statements for every candidate and constituency association campaign for the three- month election-reporting period. While most of the latter statements have been filed, they are still being audited by Elections Ontario and the final and complete records on these expenditures will not be available for another year or more. Last week, the third and fourth sets of statements for 1999 were released. These were the annual statements of central party income and expenditures and the annual statements for every constituency organization. The figures for the riding parties have yet to be checked by Elections Ontario and will not be reconciled or aggregated to final totals for probably a year or two.
 

In 1999 the Progressive Conservative central party spent more money than any other Ontario central party has spent in a single year in 15 years of record keeping and surely, an all-time spending record

What are the remarkable things?

  First, in 1999 the Progressive Conservative central party spent more money than any other Ontario central party has spent in a single year in 15 years of record keeping and surely, an all-time spending record. The $12.1 million was almost double the next highest annual central party expenditure figure, $7 million, which the party spent in 1998. It also meant that the party ran a deficit of $3.7 million for the year. In the same period, the NDP central party spent $3.5 million and the Liberals spent $3.0 million.
 

The Tories spent something in the region of $15 million to $17 million dollars on getting re-elected. That is an astonishing figure by Ontario standards and it does not include the money spent on what the opposition parties, the Provincial Auditor and the Speaker of the House all considered to be partisan government advertising in the pre-campaign period.

  Second, we can begin to get a fairly accurate picture of what the Tories spent in the election year. To the $12.1 million just reported, we can add the $5.8 million the Tory central campaign spent during the campaign period, expenditures both under and outside the cap (something the Tories redefined), and all directed at their re-election bid. To these two figures, add the spending on behalf of Tory candidates in constituencies. These figures are not complete but we can arrive at a reasonable and cautious estimate by supposing that all Tory candidates spent two-thirds of the riding expenditure caps. The average will probably turn out to be higher. The total value of all of the 103 constituency spending caps is $7.3 million dollars or, on average, about $71,000 per riding. Assume that the candidates and constituency associations spent two-thirds of that figure, $4.8 million, on re-election bids and the total spending in 1999 then becomes $22.7 million dollars. Subtract the two or three million the central party would have spent on party maintenance, and the $2.3 million the Tories spent on raising money, and that means the Tories spent something in the region of $15 million to $17 million dollars on getting re-elected. That is an astonishing figure by Ontario standards and it does not include the money spent on what the opposition parties, the Provincial Auditor and the Speaker of the House all considered to be partisan government advertising in the pre-campaign period.
  The third remarkable aspect of today's filing is the sum that the Progressive Conservative central party spent on advertising in 1999. My analysis of TV station logs, made available by the CRTC, shows that the Tory advertising campaign of April and early May 1999, just before the election was called, was in some instances more intense than their TV advertising campaign during the election period itself. For example, between April 7 and May 5, the Tories ran on CFTO 155 spots in the pre-campaign and 180 during the campaign; on CJOH they ran 256 spots in the pre-campaign and 124 in the real campaign; and, on CKCO they ran 125 spots in the pre-writ period and 130 between May 12 and June 1, the legal campaign advertising period. What did those spots cost? We know that during the campaign the Tories paid MBS Retail Media, a media buying company, $3.4 million. The statement released today indicates that they spent almost $3.5 million on advertising during 1999, most of which must have been spent in April and May of 1999, just prior to when they called the election.
 

It seems reasonable to suggest that the Tories have made campaign expenditure laws almost pointless

  It is now even clearer why the Tories shortened the campaign period to 28 days. That change brought pre-campaign advertising closer to the campaign itself, with only a weeklong blackout at the beginning of the campaign, and allowed them to spend completely unrestricted sums of money in the unregulated pre-campaign period. It seems reasonable to suggest that the Tories have made campaign expenditure laws almost entirely pointless.
  Finally, the Tory central party took in $5.9 million dollars in contributions during 1999. Another Ontario record. But even with the $4.9 million the central party raised during the campaign period, they still went temporarily into debt. Once again, the Tories were assisted by the changes they made to the contribution limits, raising the limit a corporation or individual could give in an election year from $14,000 to $25,000. I have shown that this change alone brought in an additional $1 million to the 1999 Tory central campaign. When the extra giving for all other contribution periods during 1999 can be calculated, it will surely show that this change alone added an additional $2 million to $3 million dollars to the Tory coffers. The changes will have benefited the Liberals by a fraction of this and the NDP hardly at all, since they, in comparison to the Tories, had very few donors wealthy enough to give the maximum donation. In 1999, the Liberal central party reported taking in $1.5 million in contributions and the NDP $2.2 million.
  More than ever, these figures show the yawning gap between the financial health of the Progressive Conservative party, flush with contributions from wealthy individual and corporate supporters, and the opposition Liberal and New Democrat parties, both deeply in debt. This can never be a good thing for the health of any democracy.

Robert MacDermid is an Associate Professor of Political Science at York University. For more information you can reach him at rmacd@yorku.ca.

[ Front Page ]