By Michelle Normandeau
Between advertising, salaries, rent and telephone bills, running in a federal election is becoming increasingly expensive and candidates from smaller parties are not happy about it.
In the riding of Ottawa Centre, NDP candidate Heather-jane Robertson topped the list of big spenders.
Her campaign spent $71,143 of the $122,564 it raised. The spending limit for campaigns in Ottawa Centre was $74,501.
The winning Liberal campaign was significantly cheaper. Mac Harb spent a total of $44,631 and gathered $18,251 in contributions.
But not all political hopefuls can afford an expensive campaign. Some of the small-party candidates see this as unfair.
Chris Bradshaw was the Green Party candidate for Ottawa Centre. His campaign cost $3,075 and he raised $3,690.
Bradshaw says most small-party candidates are reluctant to spend a lot of money on their campaigns.
“Federal election laws provide for any candidate that gets 15 per cent or more of the vote to get 50 per cent of their expenses back,” says Bradshaw.
The Green Party and other small parties hope the 15 per cent mark will be lowered to include smaller-party candidates.
“It gets to be a bit of a gambling game. If we spent $10,000 or $15,000 could we borrow a little bit of that on the grounds that we might get over the 15 per cent mark and get some of it back,” says Bradshaw.
Currently, candidates who get over two per cent of the vote are only refunded 22.5 per cent of their expenses.
Carla Marie Dancey, who ran for the Canadian Action Party, also sees campaign spending rules as unfair.
Dancey’s campaign cost $1,933 and had contributions totalling $2,220.
“If it was up to me, I would eliminate it (campaign spending),” says Dancey.
She also says that all candidates should receive an equal opportunity to present their platform, and equal time in the media.
Dancey says that smaller candidates are unfairly penalized by the cost of running in an election, and that more emphasis should be put on creating an equal playing field.
Tim Stutt, former co-president of the NDP riding association in Ottawa Centre, says small parties can’t rely on the government to create greater equality.
“I think that smaller parties have to roll-up their selves in terms of membership and recruitment,” says Stutt.
Stutt says small-parties have to do more to find people to volunteer, fundraise and get their message across.
Harb says it’s not how much money you have, but rather how the money is allocated.
“We could have had the option of just going out and spending up to the limit, but we did not feel that it was necessary for us to spend unnecessarily,” says Harb.
Harb also says running for re-election played a factor in how much was spent in his campaign.
The campaign for Canadian Alliance candidate David Brown cost $28,020 and raised $33,913 in contributions.
According to documents from Elections Canada, there was no campaign spending or contributions for the Natural Law Party, the Marijuana Party or the Marxist-Leninist Party. Information wasn’t available for the Progressive Conservative campaign or the Communist Party.
The following is a complete list, as released by Elections Canada, of political contributions of more than $500 to the campaigns of four candidates in Ottawa Centre in the
Nov. 27 federal election.
Mac Harb, Liberal
Dr. Andre Lalonde, $5,000
Rudi Asseer, $900
Brian Karam, $500
St. Joseph Print Group, $500
Henry Global Consulting Service
Ltd., $500
Wesley Clover Corp., $1,000
Korea Garden Rest. Inc., $500
Heather-jane Robertson, NDP
Joan Kabayama, $550
Catherine Boucher, $500
David Walker, $500
Dr. E.W. Sutherland, $500
Karen Hill, $500
Lynn Carlile, $500
Oliver Kent, $500
Peter Mix, $500
Toshihiko Hayashi, $500
David Brown, Canadian Alliance
Dr. V. Da Silva, $500
Dorothy Brown, $680
Denvil E. Brown, $680
Graham Barnes, $750
Wanda Archambault, $770.27
Sallyanne Crawshaw, $1250
Chris Thompson, $1250
Brown’s Cleaners & Tailors Ltd., $1000
Chris Bradshaw, Green Party
No contributions of more than $500.