https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/committee/421/LCJC/reports/Election_Report_FINAL_e.pdf
Also Third Party Election Advertising Reports for the 42nd General Election www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=fin&document=index&dir=oth/thi/advert/tp42&lang=e
Third parties spent $6-million to influence 2015 election
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/third-parties-spent-6-million-to-influence-2015-vote/article29491009/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
Minister
of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef answers a question during
question period in the House of Commons, on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa,
on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015. Monsef is vowing to reduce the impact of money
on federal politics amid new evidence that advocacy groups are becoming
much more active in trying to influence the outcome of elections.
Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Democratic
Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef is vowing to reduce the impact of
money on federal politics amid new evidence that advocacy groups are
becoming much more active in trying to influence the outcome of
elections.
Financial reports filed
with Elections Canada by so-called third parties show 104 groups,
primarily labour unions, spent just over $6 million during last fall's
marathon campaign.
That's more than twice the number of groups that were involved in the 2011 federal election and almost five times more money.
And
that doesn't include any money spent in the months before the election
was called, during which political spending was not regulated.
In
a statement to The Canadian Press, Monsef vowed: "We will ensure that
spending rules — both during and between elections — are in keeping with
our democratic commitment to make voters, not dollars, determine the
outcome of elections."
A
controversial overhaul of election rules in 2014 by the previous
Conservative government allows political parties, their candidates and
third parties to increase their spending limits by 1/37th for every day a
campaign exceeds the minimum length of 37 days.
While
modern campaigns, including the 2011 campaign, have typically stuck
close to the minimum length, former prime minister Stephen Harper chose
to make the last campaign a marathon of 78 days.
That
made the 2015 campaign "one of the longest in Canadian history" and
resulted in "significant increases in the spending limits of political
entities," Monsef noted.
Monsef's
statement and her reference to "political entities" appears to go
further than the Liberal election platform, which promised to close the
"loophole" created by the Conservatives' fixed date election law, which
allows unlimited spending in the run-up to a pre-determined campaign.
The
platform promised to ensure that spending between elections is subject
to limits and also to review limits on how much parties can spend during
elections.
It did not make any specific mention of third party spending during elections.
The
third parties in the 2015 campaign included a number of progressive
groups who advocated strategic voting to defeat Harper's Conservatives,
as well as some individuals. Their spending ranged from as little as
$136.66 to a high of $431,640.
According to the reports filed with Elections Canada, the top ten third party spenders during the last campaign were:
— United Steelworkers: $431,640
—
Let's Build Canada, a coalition of building trade construction unions
advocating for public investments in infrastructure: $428,975
— Canadians United for Change, a union-linked organization: $425,462.
— Public Service Alliance of Canada: $390.236.
— Friends of Canadian Broadcasting: $332,687.
— Canadian Labour Congress: $306,518.
— Unifor: $299,902.
— British Columbia Nurses Union: $256,872.
— Canadian Media Guild: $237,033.
— Canadian Union of Postal Workers: $208,572.
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