Election Finances: Follow the Money

November 2003 Municipal Election

• Follow the Money 2003: Listings of donors for each councillor
  
• Top Donors List: Listings of top donors to city councillors.
  
• Preliminary Mayoral Donor Lists: preliminary lists released by David Miller, John Tory and Barbara Hall in November 2003
  
• VoteToronto Presentation: The Need for Electoral Reform, presented to members of Toronto City Council in advance of their vote on election finance reform at the July 2003 session of council.

All candidates in the November 2003 election were required to file their financial papers by March 31, 2004. Financial statements are available from the City Clerk's office at City Hall (100 Queen St. W., 5th floor, west tower), during normal business hours. Income and expense statements are available online on the City of Toronto website. (Opens in a new window.)

2000 Municipal Election

• Follow the Money: 2000 Election: A summary page reviewing campaign donors in the 2000 Toronto election.
  
• Donation Summary Chart (PDF): lists total fundraising and breakdowns by business and citizen donations for all councillors and mayor
  
• Top Donors list: lists top donors to all races, and top donors broken down by business sub-category
  
• Donors by Ward: complete lists of donors to all candidates for Toronto's 44 wards
  

Provincial Elections

Federal Elections

Federal election financing data is available from the Elections Canada Contributions and Expenses Database. Contributions are searchable and the data is available for download in various file formats. (Link opens in a new window.)

Electoral Finance Reform

Municipal:
The City of Toronto created the Toronto Election Finance Review Task Force to examine the rules around election finance and suggest improvements that would increase public accountability. City Council approved several election finance reforms at the September 2004 meeting of City Council. Read more about the reforms here.

Federal:
As of January 1, 2004, Bill C-24, which has established new rules governing political financing, has come into effect. Some of the biggest changes to the Canada Elections Act include restricting corporate and union donations to all candidates to $1,000 per year, and individual donations to each party are restricted to $5,000 per year. Other changes include more frequent reporting of donors (every three months, rather than once a year), and rules to prevent donations through other people or organizations.

Read more about Bill C-24 on the Elections Canada website.
Also, see an analysis of Bill C-24 on the Democracy Watch website. (Both sites will open in a new window.)