Doug Ford's PC Party fundraising leaves rivals in its dust

Premier Doug Ford's Ontario PCs have built up a $9 million surplus in party coffers, dwarfing their rivals amid the possibility of an early provincial election call.

The parties have just filed their annual financial statements to Elections Ontario and the documents show the Progressive Conservatives in far better financial shape than either the NDP or Liberals.

The reports show each party's surplus at the end of 2023 as follows:

• Ontario PC Party: $8.98 million

• Ontario NDP: $2.18 million

• Ontario Liberal Party: $2.58 million

• Green Party of Ontario: $525,000

It's uncommon for an Ontario party to be so flush with cash this early in a four-year election cycle.

The surplus puts the PCs in position to get a leg up on the opposition by spending money now on such activities as political advertising and polling, which strategists say will give Ford's party a distinct advantage if he calls an early election.

The Ontario PC Party has a "very significant and sustained" lead in fundraising over its rivals, says Dan Mader, a longtime Conservative political organizer and a founding partner of communications firm Loyalist Public Affairs.

"Competing for votes is expensive," said Mader in an interview. "Politics is about reaching voters, convincing them to support you and then making sure [those voters] get around to voting. Money drives all of that."

Mader says the PCs get an even bigger boost by having so much money available now because the spending limits imposed on Ontario's political parties around each election campaign aren't currently in force.

"The fundraising advantage for the PCs really lets them get out of the gate and build up their lead and solidify it," he said.

The hefty war chest has already helped the PCs to run high-profile political advertising campaigns this year.

This has included attack ads targeting Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie and promotional ads showing Ford making calls on his phone and saying he's "working hard to make things better for every single person in Ontario."

Neither the Liberals nor the NDP have mounted such high-profile and costly ad campaigns and their financial situation is likely why, according to Kate Harrison, a Conservative strategist and vice-chair of Summa Strategies, a public affairs firm.

"There's a big hill to climb for [party leader] Marit Stiles and the NDP in terms of framing themselves as the true opposition party to Doug Ford," said Harrison in an interview. "Not having the resources in the bank to do that is a challenge."

The opposition parties face the prospect of even tougher financial times next year when they lose out on what has been their most reliable source of revenue.

Ford has promised to scrap Ontario's taxpayer-funded per-vote subsidy to the political parties at the end of 2024.

Loss of subsidy will hurt opposition parties

While the PCs got more than $5 million from the subsidy in 2023, it provided the New Democrats ($3.63 million) and Liberals ($3.56 million) more than either party raised in donations.

The measure was introduced in 2017 when the previous Liberal government banned the parties from accepting donations from businesses and unions.

The loss of the subsidy will hurt the NDP and Liberals more than it will hurt the PCs, especially if there's an election in 2025, according to Nicholas Pozhke, a former federal Conservative political staffer now with public affairs firm Crestview Strategy in Toronto.

The opposition parties "will have to get much more creative" about their fundraising, said Pozhke in an interview. "Political financing really is the lifeblood of any campaign in any party."

The PC Party out-fundraised their rivals by a wide margin last year, a gap that Pozhke describes as "staggering."

Financial statements filed with Elections Ontario show the Progressive Conservatives collected $7.96 million in political donations over the course of 2023.

The PCs earned about half of that in one night by selling more than 2,600 tickets at $1,500 a plate to a March 2 dinner headlined by Ford, making for one of the biggest single fundraisers in Canadian political history.

By contrast, the NDP collected $3.2 million in donations in 2023, the Liberals $2.1 million and the Green Party $1.7 million.

Stiles, Crombie downplay PC donation lead

Both the NDP and Liberal leaders are brushing off the PCs' advantage in fundraising.

"We rely, and we always have, on relatively small donations from a lot of people," Stiles told reporters at Queen's Park on Tuesday.

"Our numbers are really good and strong," she said. "If this government calls an early election, bring it. We will absolutely be ready."

Crombie said Tuesday at Queen's Park that she is a capable fundraiser. "We will have the money to fight an election whenever it is called," she said.

Harrison says the relative financial state of the parties helps create "a pretty attractive scenario" for Ford to call an election well before his government's mandate ends in June 2026.

"I think the signs are there for an early election," she said. "We've got the majority government that is ahead in the polls, an opposition that has yet to define itself, and a healthy [PC Party] nest egg from which to build."

While Ford said last week in an interview with an Ottawa radio station that he will not call an election this summer or fall, he pointedly has not ruled out sending Ontario to the polls in 2025.

Multiple sources close to the Progressive Conservatives have told CBC News that late next spring is the most likely date for an early election, but that no decision has been made.

Political strategists say it would be to Ford's advantage to go to the polls before a federal election, anticipated in the fall of 2025.