September 2013 Donor Disclosure
Since my first term on council, campaign finance reform has been an important issue for me. Of particular interest have been donation limits and donation disclosure prior to the vote (please see here, here and here for more on that). I did some advocacy on this in 2009 and, as a result, I pledged to walk-the-walk in 2010 and disclose my donors publicly prior to the vote (you can find that here). I was the only one of my current council colleagues to do so.
In June, a few days after my mayoral announcement, I told the Edmonton Journal that I would be disclosing my donors prior to the election, just as I did in 2010. In this election, given the size and the stakes, I’ve elected to provide my donors at the beginning of the official election period and I will be disclosing again before the end of the election.
The reason I did this in 2010, and the reason I will do it again this year, is the simple principle of transparency. During elections, we look at candidates resumes, voting records and media statements before making our choices – I believe that who funds your campaign should be part of that decision-making process.
At this point, I am reporting a total of $318,772 from 441 donors. Of those donors, 230 have made donations between $10 and $100, for a total of $13,893. A list of the 211 donors who have made aggregate contributions of more than $100 is available here, broken down into ranges. My final financial disclosure prior to the vote will include all final and specific amounts donated. This list represents all valid contributions that the campaign has received up until September 23rd.
I’d like to thank everyone who has made a contribution to the campaign up to this point. The support from Edmontonians of all backgrounds has been truly inspiring.
Don Iveson for Mayor September Campaign Donor List
7 thoughts on “September 2013 Donor Disclosure”
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While an impressive amount of money raised to this point, it was a tad disappointing to see that most (not all) of the donations in the $3500-$5000 category were from the development industry and companies who work for them.
It’s time to get big money (from developers and civic unions) out of municipal politics. Only individuals eligible to vote in the Edmonton election should be able to donate money to municipal candidates.
Banning corporate and union donations would also help level the playing field between incumbents (who the development industry donates to regardless of political stripe in order to buy goodwill) and challengers. This would make for more competitive municipal elections and encourage more quality candidates to step forward to challenge incumbents.
John, I totally agree. Businesses have vested interests in the decisions of government and their monetary influence should be kept out of the council chamber. Aren’t political donations tax deductible too? There’s no need for that.
Personally I would rather we have no nomination or campaigning at all and we all just vote for people we know and trust from experience, rather than as a result of advertising. Then we’d get officials who didn’t want the job, but saw it as a call of duty from his/her fellow-citizens. The one’s most qualified for power are those who don’t seek it. Still, Don seems like a nice chap so far.
Just wanted to add some information to this discussion, having run for office myself.
I am not convinced that restricting business donations will have the desired effect of levelling the playing field. What will likely transpire is that there will just be more cheques written by individuals but really funded by corporations. In reality there are very easy ways to get around “corporate” donation restrictions.
No system is perfect but I do understand the interest to make these changes. I would like to see a limit to campaign spending amounts, but there are also ways to circumvent this through in kind contributions. To some people limiting the amount to say $30,000 for councillors and $150,000 for mayor, still puts running out of their reach. So again, no system is perfect.
There are no tax receipts given for municipal election contributions. This is a decision of the provincial government through the Municipal Government Act and applies to all local government elections. Perhaps some of the thinking here is that this limits donations as there is no tax advantage.
So for me, I am really happy that this type of open information is being given out before the election happens. This is an important indicator of transparency and accountability of the candidates for elected office.
Bravo to all the candidates disclosing before the election. This is a positive step forward in the messy and imperfect system of democracy.
Janice, corporations would not be allowed to directly reimburse employee contributions. But you’re correct, there are workarounds. For instance, corporations could award a larger year-end bonus to off-set an election contribution.
One thing a ban on corporate and union donations would end is the circumventing the $5,000 contribution limit by giving once through the company and contributing again in a personal capacity. Examples of this are not hard to find on the disclosure listings of Council incumbents in this and previous election campaigns. Most of this double-dipping is done by the CEOs or senior managers of companies involved in the development industry.
In exchange for ending corporation and union donations, contributions from eligibile voters should be tax deductible on a basis similar to those who donate to federal and provincial campaigns.
It’s true that federal political campaign contributions are deductible against federal income tax and provincial campaign contributions are deductible against provincial income tax. The fact that municipal campaign donations are not deductible can be seen as unfair by comparison. However, is the suggestion that municipal contributions would be deductible from the City’s only tax base- the property tax? And if so, wouldn’t that be problematic for renters, who would not benefit? It’s hard to see why the Province would allow municipal campaign contributions to be deducted from the Province’s income tax base.