Election spending by the four candidates in Powell River-Sunshine Coast mirrors the overall picture for B.C. with the Liberals running a more expensive campaign than the NDP or Greens.
NDP MLA Nicholas Simons, who won his fourth term, reported campaign expenses of $70,551.01, with $58,865 coming through transfers from the local NDP constituency association and the party HQ. The Simons campaign also reported just over $6,000 in in-kind contributions, including $300 from CUPE Local 801, $700 from the Sunshine Coast Labour Council and $1,290 from Unifor Local 1119. Simons’ only reported corporate donation was $750 in-kind from a computer services company.
Simons’ contributions of $250 or less, which don’t require reporting the donor’s name, totalled $856 from 18 donors.
Liberal Mathew Wilson’s campaign spent $156,548.33, with $119,655.19 in transfers from the BC Liberal Party. Wilson reported $28,787.92 in corporate contributions with the single largest, $21,700, coming from No. 16 Great Projects Limited, a Vancouver company registered to John Lyle Barr and Donald E. Ritchie.
The Wilson campaign received individual donations of over $250 amounting to $2,687.91, most of it from Wilson himself.
There were also six contributors who gave $250 or less for a total of $967.33.
Green candidate Kim Darwin listed $27,924.94 in expenses, with transfers from the Green Party of $14,052.50. The Darwin campaign also reported $3,900 in contributions over $250 from six different donors in amounts ranging from $400 to $1,000. There were also 52 individual donations of $250 or less which added up to $5,642.
The Cascadia Party’s Reuben Richards ran a $375 campaign on $500 in individual contributions.
The biggest line items for the candidates were, not surprisingly, advertising and promotional material. Simons spent $18,745.42 in those categories, Wilson $33,226.20, Darwin $16,513.01 and Richards $125.
Wilson was the only candidate in the riding with expenses for “research and polling.” That came in at $5,053.86.
The expense reports also give an interesting insight into life in a ferry-dependent community. Over the course of the month-long campaign, Wilson racked up $1,036.95 in ferry fares, Simons spent $635.35 and Darwin’s ferry travel costs came in at $1,153.20
Expense reports for all BC candidates, and the party head offices, are available at elections.bc.ca.
