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Numbered companies, Bombardier and Trudeau's not-so-local riding: 17 things to know about political donations

The top donations to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's local riding association came almost entirely from British Columbia in 2016

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83% — Justin’s not-so-local riding

The top donations to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s local riding association came almost entirely from British Columbia in 2016. Eighty-three per cent of contributions for $15,000 — the maximum amount allowed at the federal level — came from out of province. That’s pretty much the exact opposite of how most riding associations raise funds. Generally, the bulk of donations are local, with a few scattered contributions (perhaps from friends and family of the candidates) from across the country. About 85 per cent of donations to Conservative MP Michelle Rempel come from Alberta. New Democrat MP Charlie Angus has recorded only one out-of-province donation to his riding association. And Nova Scotians contributed 90 per cent of the money raised by Liberal Mark Eyking’s Cape Breton riding association.

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— Stuart Thomson

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$18.8 million — The big winner in the federal fundraising game

Conservatives were the big winners in last year’s fundraising game, based on Elections Canada data from 2017. There were 147,921 donations to the Tories, at an average of $127 each, adding up to $18.8 million for the party. About 89 per cent gave less than $200, with more than half of the total coming from small donations. There was an additional $6.7 million raised by leadership candidates in the race that culminated at the end of May. By contrast, the Liberals scored just over $14 million from 126,703 donations at an average of $111 each. And the New Democrats got 61,875 contributions, adding up to $4.9 million. Another $2 million was donated to leadership campaigns leading up to a vote in October.

— Marie-Danielle Smith

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208 — Numbered companies

In 2003, 55555 Inc. — a company attached to the co-chairs of Paul Martin’s leadership campaign — gave $2,974,341 to the federal Liberals. Since then, donations made by all-but-anonymous numbered companies have been outlawed at the federal level and in most provinces and territories. In the Wild West that is Saskatchewan, however, they are still accepted. And between 2006 and 2016, there were 208 donations made by numbered companies. Nearly all of these contributions — 195, adding up to more than $300,000 — went to the Saskatchewan Party. The other numbered companies supported the NDP ($39,800), the Liberals ($400) and Progressive Conservatives ($300). Determining who is behind a numbered company requires a corporate record search. That’s free when companies are registered with the federal government, but in Saskatchewan it can cost hundreds of dollars. On the other hand, at least the province does provide information on who has registered the company — in the Yukon, certificates of status do not need to include a corporation’s directors, shareholders, or even its address.

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— Zane Schwartz

$1.5 million — The Bombardier legacy

Bombardier has never been shy about asking for government money. But then the Montreal-based company hasn’t been shy about giving it out either. Since 1993, Bombardier has doled out nearly $1.5 million to federal politicians. In the 1990s, contributions were split between (some) parties — with tens of thousands of dollars going to the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives and the Reform Party. In 1999-2000, even the NDP racked up about $5,000 in donations. All that was before electoral finance reforms, which barred corporations from making donations at the federal level. Bombardier’s last major donation was a $139,795 contribution to the Liberal Party in 2003.

— Stuart Thomson

In this image taken shot off a television screen, Yves Cadotte, a vice president at SNC Lavalin testifies before the Charbonneau Commission in Montreal, Thursday, March 14, 2013.
In this image taken shot off a television screen, Yves Cadotte, a vice president at SNC Lavalin testifies before the Charbonneau Commission in Montreal, Thursday, March 14, 2013. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

$100 — Quebec, after Charbonneau

The Charbonneau Commission revealed all manner of payouts — in cash, via conduit contributions — from special interests to Quebec politicians. Yves Cadotte, a vice-president at SNC-Lavalin, told the inquiry in 2013 that the construction company split about $1 million in illegal donations between the Liberals and the Parti Quebecois from 1998 to 2010. As he explained, “We received demands. The government was an important client of ours so we answered their demands and the risk of not doing so was significant.” Since then, the province has changed the maximum donation limit to $100, the lowest in Canada. Manitoba and Nova Scotia are the highest, capped at $5,000.

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— Zane Schwartz

$22,643,000 — Big Labour, Big Money

Many provinces and territories — like the federal government — have banned union contributions. But where labour can give, it’s given generously. Unions accounted for six of the top 10 donors in B.C. between 2005 and 2017 and seven of the top ten donors in Ontario between 2007 and 2016. They also ranked among top donors in Saskatchewan, Yukon, Nunavut and Newfoundland. Some contributions were modest. For example, about $12,000 in total from UNIFOR to the Yukon NDP. But United Steelworkers was the biggest donor, period, in both B.C. (approximately $3,172,000 in total contributions, all to the NDP) and Ontario (approximately $1,603,000 in total contributions, all to the NDP).

— Staff

$132,200 — Encana’s top-dollar poltical support

In the last two years, Encana Corporation has given generously to the ruling powers in British Columbia. The bulk of donations from the oil and gas producer — $117,200 — went to the B.C. Liberal Party, although the company also donated $15,000 to the now-incumbent B.C. NDP. These gifts eclipse those from Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Encana’s much larger rival in the Montney Formation of northeastern B.C. and Alberta, which donated $30,990 over the same period. Several smaller producers operating in B.C. also contributed to both the provincial Liberal Party and the NDP. The donations come as a group of light oil and natural gas companies in Canada, led by Encana, are positioning themselves as a clean “alternative” to the oil sands, in part through lobbying efforts with various provincial and federal governments. Several major companies have also proposed liquified natural gas (LNG) export facilities along the B.C. coast.

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— Jesse Snyder

$3.2 million — Which province raised the most money

By nearly any metric, politicians in B.C. have been raising more money than anywhere else in Canada. All of the top donors aggregated by the Follow the Money project gave more than $1 million, whereas only four other donors cleared the $1 million threshold in the rest of the country — three of them in Ontario, which has about triple the population. B.C.’s biggest donor, the United Steelworkers, gave more money ($3.2 million) than the top 10 donors in Alberta combined ($2.6 million).

— Zane Schwartz

Steven Stairs, CEO, Marijuana Party of Canada for Kildonan / St.Paul, led a handful of demonstrators through the streets of Winnipeg today.
Steven Stairs, CEO, Marijuana Party of Canada for Kildonan / St.Paul, led a handful of demonstrators through the streets of Winnipeg today. Photo by Chris Procaylo/Winnipeg Sun/QMI Agency

$785,000 — Cash for the fringe

In 2016 and 2017, Canadians donated almost $785,000 to federal parties that have yet to secure seats in parliament. In first place, with $372,000 from 570 donors, was the 30-year-old Christian Heritage Party of Canada, which advocates for “Biblical perspectives.” In second: the Animal Protection Party of Canada — the “only true multi-issue party, because we are inclusive of all species” — raised a bit over $190,000 from 407 people. Next come the Marxist-Leninists and Communists, with more than $163,000 combined from nearly 200 donors, followed by the Libertarians with $40,000 from 84 donors. Rounding out the list: the Marijuana Party (existentially threatened, we assume) with $6,875; the Progressive Canadian Party, led by a former Progressive Conservative trade minister, at $3,500; the National Advancement Party of Canada, an anti-globalization party founded in 2014, at $2,280; and the Rhinoceros Party of Canada. That last one, which raised $2,550, promises policies such as Senate appointments by lottery, privatizing the Queen, and a tongue-in-cheek black market tax.

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— Marie-Danielle Smith

$4,251,298.06 — The biggest donation we tracked

Winnipeg businessman W. H. (Bill) Loewen made the largest donation recorded in our database. Loewen was the president of the short-lived National Party of Canada, created in 1992 to promote parliamentary reform and oppose free trade. The party won two per cent of the vote in the 1993 election, but no seats. According to a June report by CTV that year, the party had a budget of $6 million. Largely, this came from Loewen: In addition to his $4-million donation, he gave $27,0500 to the party in 1993.

— Zane Schwartz

1 — Corporate donors to the Communist Party of Canada

In 2001, Tera International Consultants Inc., a Montreal-based firm, donated $300 to the Communist Party of Canada. The contribution appears to be the only political donation made by the company, which was incorporated in 1987 but dissolved three times thereafter — in 2009, 2013 and 2017 (most recently, after failing to file annual income statements). The company was registered as a non-distributing corporation with fewer than 50 shareholders. No other information about its consulting offerings, or any rationale for a donation to an anti-capitalist organization, is publicly available.

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— Jesse Snyder

Victor Dodig, President and CEO of CIBC speaks during the annual meeting of shareholders in Ottawa on Thursday, April 6, 2017.
Victor Dodig, President and CEO of CIBC speaks during the annual meeting of shareholders in Ottawa on Thursday, April 6, 2017. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

$275,000 — CIBC’s orange crush

Canada’s banks often weight their donations evenly between centre-right political parties. Royal Bank of Canada has donated repeatedly to Premier Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party. TD Bank contributed to the right-leaning B.C. Liberals in both 2015 and 2016. And in the last by-election, Bank of Nova Scotia gave almost $20,000 to the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario. Doing business with the left is another story: In 2016, the CIBC gave $275,000 to the NDP in Saskatchewan — as a loan.

— Stuart Thomson

$1.6 million — Donations from beyond the grave

Until recently, there was one simple trick to get around federal donation limits: You could die. Several of the largest donations in this database are from estates, almost exclusively bequests to the NDP. “This is one area of fundraising, the law allows it, and we started a legacy campaign to use that,” an NDP MP told Postmedia in 2014. The biggest contributions come from the estates of Peter Kirk Sinclair (totaling $1 million in 2014 and $600,000 in 2013), William Giesbrecht ($296,164 in 2012), Ruth Millicent Hass ($210,858 in 2010) and Jack Layton ($50,000 in 2012). The B.C. NDP also racked up huge estate donations during this period. None of the other parties come even close to such bequests, and the Conservative government closed this loophole in 2014 as part of the Fair Elections Act. In at least one case, donations from the great beyond have also led to litigation: Sinclair’s daughter filed a lawsuit arguing he was mentally unfit when he essentially cut her out of his will to give to the NDP. (She eventually settled out of court.)

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— Brian Platt

$96,062 — The cost of an education

One of the odder examples of money moving around in politics is the cash flow from the ivory tower to party troughs. The Follow the Money database traced $96,062 in contributions from universities to political parties. In the 1990s, before corporations were banned from donations to federal parties, the Liberals received money from schools across the country, among them: University of Alberta ($4,539 in 1999), Saint Mary’s University ($3,126 in 2003) and the University of Western Ontario ($2,941 in 1998). Schools have also been banned from making contributions in most provinces, but between 2006 and 2012, Saskatchewan parties split about $30,000 in gifts from the University of Regina, the University of Saskatchewan, the First Nations University of Canada and the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology.

— Zane Schwartz / Brian Platt

$100,000 — Giving with one hand, slapping with the other

Over the last ten years or so, the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing, Pipefitting and Sprinkler Fitting Industry have given $28,460 to the Progressive Conservatives of Ontario. A small fraction of their overall contributions — more than $1.2 million — but a nicely bipartisan gesture from Big Labour. Unless, that is, you consider the $100,000 the group has also put towards Working Families, a third-party union group that has run ads attacking the PCs in every election since 2003.

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— Staff

John Ince of the Canadian Polamory Association of Canada comments on the BC Supreme Court decision that Polygamy remains a crime in Canada, at BC Supreme Court in Vancouver, BC October 23, 2011.
John Ince of the Canadian Polamory Association of Canada comments on the BC Supreme Court decision that Polygamy remains a crime in Canada, at BC Supreme Court in Vancouver, BC October 23, 2011. Photo by Nick Procaylo/PNG

$3,500 — Not as sexy as they thought

The Sex Party was not the group orgy you might imagine: Starting in 2005, the British Columbia provincial party raised a grand total of $3,500, mostly from founder John Ince, a lawyer, the co-owner of an erotica store and the author of books including The Politics of Lust. The party’s policies included reforming sex ed, repealing prostitution laws and making Valentine’s Day a statutory holiday. In 2006, Canada Post refused to distribute a flyer it deemed pornographic. But when the party fought back in court, the party was absolved of any illegal activity and Canada Post was ordered to rewrite its guidelines on the distribution of sexual material. The party was delisted in 2012.

— Marie-Danielle Smith

$550 — Mostly changing loyalties

Donation records track the sudden change of heart in nearly all cases where a politician has changed parties, including Thomas Mulcair (whose donations shifted from the Quebec Liberals to the NDP in 2007), Glenn Thibeault (from NDP to Ontario Liberals in 2015), Scott Brison (from Conservative to Liberal in 2003) and Eve Adams (from Conservative to Liberal in 2015). Bob Rae is an exception: When the former NDP premier crossed over to the Liberals he took most of his money with him — except for a $300 donation to Irene Mathyssen and a $250 donation to Rochelle Carnegie. It shows personal loyalty at the very least: Mathyssen was a cabinet minister when Rae was premier of Ontario, and Carnegie had worked for him as a staffer.

— Brian Platt

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