[thistleclub]

Questioning election finances
(CATCH, Mar 30 2015)

There are numerous questions generated by the dozens of campaign financial statements filed last week by councillors and other candidates in last fall’s municipal election. But answers will have to be pursued by individual voters because no official oversight of the statements is required under provincial law. And in Hamilton you can’t even compare the 2014 campaign spending to earlier elections.

Elections manager Tony Fallis has told CATCH that “the 2010 financial statements have been destroyed as per the Municipal Elections Act”. Section 88 of the Act orders destruction of ballots within 120 days and says the city clerk “may destroy any other documents and materials related to the election” but then says this section “does not apply” to financial statements “which the clerk shall retain until the members of the council …elected at the next regular election have taken office.”

But Hamilton’s interpretation of the legislation isn’t the same as other municipalities such as Toronto where all financial statements from both the 2006 and 2010 elections are still on the city’s website.

The 2014 campaign financial statements raise a number of significant questions. Newbie Stoney Creek councillor Doug Conley failed to provide any sources for his campaign funds; addresses of most donors listed on Brad Clark’s return are not provided despite the legal requirement to do so; some donors are listed as individuals but with corporate addresses; and at least one corporate donor company doesn’t appear to exist at all.

A particularly curious feature of the 2014 statements is the use of very expensive “voting day party / appreciation notices” apparently to avoid the legal requirement to donate fundraising surpluses to the city.

Before the election campaign, candidates are told the maximum amount they are allowed to spend – based on the number of voters in their ward (or the city for mayoralty candidates). If a candidate collects more than that amount, she “must pay the surplus over to the clerk” where “it becomes the property of the municipality” or is used for specific post-election expenses such as a recount or compliance audit.

However, the rules exempt some expenditures from the election spending limits including “expenses related to parties and other expressions of appreciation after the close of voting”. Five long-time councillors and at least one newbie each report spending over $2000 on this item, with Tom Jackson devoting nearly as much to it as he spent getting re-elected.


Read it in full here.