Canada
Conservatives and their cash
The data these charts are based on was released by Elections Canada in early July and you may have read or heard the headlines earlier this summer but I thought it worth putting these charts together on my Labour Day in light of new spending on advertising campaigns from the Conservatives and New Democrats (see below). You may also have seen Conservative MPs all over the country this summer canvassing for caucus colleagues or for Conservative hopefuls here there and everywhere. When Alberta MPs are campaigning in Ontario or Atlantic Canada, for example, the travel bill is not paid by the taxpayer but through these contributions. Same thing for Poilievre's non-stop cross country tour (which includes a full audio-visual and social media support team when he travels).
(For these charts, I'm using 2015 as my start date, the year in which the Trudeau government was first elected. The observant among you will notice that even though the Conservatives have dominated fundraising all through this period -- including during writ periods -- it's the Liberals who won the most seats in all three elections!) -DA
Some observations:
- Counting only those quarters since 2007 that did not include an election, the CPC had its 3rd best quarter ever for the three months ended June 30, 2024: Raising $9.83 million from from 52,519 contributors. Notably, its three best quarters have all come while Pierre Poilievre was leader.
- The fundraising totals for the Liberals, NDP and the BQ were pretty ho-hum relatively speaking.
- People's Party of Canada had its worst-ever quarter (it's only been reporting for 10 quarters) with just $140,057 in contributions from just 1,850 contributors. -DA
One measure of the sign of enthusiasm the base has for a party might be measured in per capita contributions. Well, so far in both quarters in 2024, the Conservatives are knocking it out of the park on that score.
In the first quarter of this year, the CPC per capita contribution was $209.62 -- an all-time record for any party in any quarter since 2007. Then, in the quarter that ended in June, the CPC had the fifth all-time best per capita contributions at $187.21. In fact, the Conservaties own four of the top five spots in this category. The only interloper is the best per caita quarter the Liberals ever had in the 2nd quarter of 2009 -- 2nd all time among all partiees since 2007 -- when that party's donors kicked in an average of $199.01 each.
(For these donor-per-capita charts I'm presenting data back to 2007. Why 2007? That's when elections financing laws changed to their current rules making it more of an apples-to-apples comparison. That said, I have not adjusted for inflation so these charts all use dollar figures as reported at the time.) -DA
But back to 2024 -- where we take note that fundraising by the Bloc Quebecois under Yves-Francois Blanchet continues to be much stronger than his predecessors. The Bloc's all-time best per capita contributions came in the first quarter of 2022, 2nd best was in the first quarter of 2023 and in the 2nd quarter of 2024, it notched its third best at $174.80 per donor. Blanchet took over as BQ leader at the beginning of 2019.
One last note: I always like to remind folks that, in Canadian federal politics, only individuals may contribute cash to a political party, riding association, candidate or leadership contestant -- and individuals are capped at $1,725 per year. Donations from businesses, NGOs, and unions are prohibited. -DA
Conservatives, NDP both centre Poilievre in pitches to unionized voters
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Selon la ministre du Revenu national et députée de Compton-Stanstead, Marie-Claude Bibeau, le rôle des parlementaires est aussi de «s’assurer que nos municipalités soient bien informées des opportunités qui s’offrent à elles et des processus à suivre pour en bénéficier.»
The Provinces
Manitoba's NDP government caught in fiscal squeeze during first year
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Saskatchewan politicos: Help!
Elections Saskatchewan is about the only elections authority I know that does not produce a vote transposition whenever there are new boundaries for a general election. And so, dear reader, I'm looking for your help as I prepare to help SK colleagues cover this fall's election in Canada's greenest province:
Do you or do you know of someone who has a transposition of the 2020 vote on to the 2024 SK riding boundaries? If so, please get in touch!
Pic here of yours truly was taken during our family's 2015 cross-Canada car trek at a rest stop on the Trans-Canada as you cross from Manitoba into SK. -DA
Elsewhere
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U.K. suspends some arms exports to Israel, citing humanitarian law risk
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UN Experts Express 'Alarm' As Executions In Iran Reach 93 In August
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Media
An ugly case of 'false balance' in the New York Times
Margaret Sullivan: ... its politics coverage often seems broken and clueless — or even blatantly pro-Trump. There’s so much of this false-balance nonsense in the Times that there’s a Twitter (X) account devoted to mocking it, called New York Times Pitchbot. Sometimes, sadly, it’s hard to tell the difference between the satire and the reality. Sullivan is a former public editor for the NYT
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Science and tech
The Starliner spacecraft has started to emit strange noises
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