With political campaigns comes a need to garner funds to pay for items like signs and brochures. Often, those are paid for with the help of donations but some candidates in the St. Albert city council election are opting to avoid asking for funds.
While the majority of candidates are accepting donations and plan on disclosing their campaign finances as per provincial regulations, council candidates Roger Bradley, Hughena Burke and Norm Harley are all deliberately pursuing almost entirely self-funded campaigns.
“I encourage people ‘Do not donate,’” said Bradley. He said he has had a couple of people offer donations but hasn’t accepted anything yet, though he may. His website asks people to not donate and instead suggests three agencies he likes they could donate to instead. He’s discouraging donations because he feels running for council is a personal decision.
“And as a personal decision I didn’t feel right asking other people in St. Albert, St. Albertans for money for something I want to do,” Bradley said.
Burke might accept one donation from a friend outside of St. Albert, but is avoiding collecting funds because she wants to avoid the perception of owing anyone for their support.
“I want to look at things from a fresh mind,” Burke said.
Harley’s also avoiding that perception.
“I don’t believe in taking donations. As soon as you take donations, there’s a perceived conflict of interest,” Harley said.
Candidate Ted Durham is accepting donations, but is putting his donors online through the news section. Currently he has a list dated to the end of September on his site, though most of the donations are made by himself. He said he’s putting his donors online because he believes in transparency.
“We need to be honest with what’s happening,” Durham said.
Candidate John Goldsmith hasn’t yet decided what he wants to do with his campaign finances, while all the rest of the candidates: mayoral hopefuls Shelley Biermanski and Nolan Crouse, and council contenders Wes Brodhead, Mark Cassidy, David Climenhaga, Cathy Heron, Sheena Hughes, Gareth Jones, Cam MacKay, Tim Osborne, Malcolm Parker, Gilles Prefontaine and Bob Russell all indicated they are collecting donations – though a few noted they haven’t received much and are also almost entirely self-funding – and will disclose according to the legislation, which is by March 1. Candidates Brodhead, Cassidy, Heron, Osborne and Prefontaine all indicated they’d be willing to be open with people if asked, and many, though not all, of the candidates noted they lack the time to add the information to their websites.
Under the regulations, candidates must file their financial disclosures by March 1. Those disclosures must total any contributions by individuals or organizations that didn’t exceed $100 in aggregate, and for any contributions that exceeded $100 by individuals or organizations must list the name and address of the donor.
The financial statements also must set out the revenue and expenses incurred by the campaign.
The donation limit is $5,000 within a year by a person or organization. Candidates can’t exceed $10,000 in contributions to their own campaign.
Those who entirely self-fund their campaigns are not required to disclose, though the limit is still $10,000.
