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Party and Candidate Expenditures in the Canadian General Election of 1972*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Khayyam Z. Paltiel
Khayyam Z. Paltiel
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Extract

A calculation similar in manner to that employed by the Advisory Committee on Election Expenses, and by the author for earlier elections, reveals that a conservative estimate of over-all spending by political parties and candidates in the 1972 federal general election campaign would have amounted to well over $31 million. To complete the picture of the cash outlay on the federal electoral process one should add the $20,435,277.54 spent by the chief electoral officer on the 1972 federal general election, as well as the value of free broadcasting time supplied to parties and candidates by the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the private stations. (In addition, the unknown costs of obtaining a party's nomination by constituency candidates and the pro-rated costs of the representation commissioner and electoral boundary commissioners calculated by Professor Norman Ward at $200,000 per election must be computed in order to arrive at the full cost of the electoral process.)

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 341 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1974

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References

1 For a general review of Canadian legislative history and experience in the area of this paper see, Paltiel, K.Z., Political Party Financing in Canada (Toronto, 1970Google Scholar).

2 Ward, Norman, “Money and Politics: The Costs of Democracy in Canada,” this Journal, V, no. 3 (Sept. 1972), 335–47.Google Scholar

3 Information concerning candidate expenditures declared for the 1972 general election is derived from Canada: Sessional Paper showing declared election expenses for each candidate for the general election of 30 October 1972 prepared by the chief electoral officer and tabled in the House of Commons, 8 March 1973.

4 For a brilliant discussion of the roots of ccf/ndp strength in Saskatchewan see Lipset, Seymour M., Agrarian Socialism, Rev. paperback ed. (New York, 1968Google Scholar).

5 The author wishes to thank the numerous Liberal, Progressive Conservative, and New Democratic party officials for their generous help in the preparation of this paper and accompanying studies. In particular he is grateful to John M. Godfrey, qc., chairman of the Treasury Committee, and Blair Williams, national director of the Liberal Party of Canada; Finlay MacDonald, national campaign chirman, Malcolm Wickson, campaign director, and Mr Curley of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada; and not least to Clifford Scotton, federal secretary of the New Democratic Party for his unstinting help over the years.

6 For a detailed discussion of the broadcasting media in Canadian political campaigns, see Paltiel, Political Party Financing, 76–93; and Paltiel, Khayyam Z. and Kjosa, Larry G., “The Structure and Dimensions of Election Broadcasting in Canada,” Jahrbuch des Öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart, Neue Folge/Band 19, Tübingen 1970, 355–82.Google Scholar

7 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Free Time Periods Federal Election Campaign 1972, mimeographed report prepared by the Program Policy Branch, 8 December 1972.

8 “Paid Political Broadcasts – Federal General Election 1972,” a summary table prepared and sent to the author by Peter McDonald, director, Broadcast Programs Branch, Canadian Radio-Television Commission in the spring of 1973.