29% of Total Income for ABC Vancouver Came Directly From Sim and Running Mates
Mayor Ken Sim and Vancouver city council at the 2022 inauguration at The Orpheum Theatre. (Photos via Twitter / @Howellings).
On its way to a triumphant municipal election last November, A Better City Vancouver, or ABC, spent just over $2 million in its sweep to power.
In its first campaign, ABC elected Mayor Ken Sim to office, as well as all of its seven candidates for council, six for park board and four for school board.
What is more interesting is how it received its contributions and how they were allocated when compared to other competing parties.
Using data released by Elections BC last Thursday, we dove into some interesting figures and abnormalities within each of the competing parties' general elections disclosure statements.
Massive Transfers From ABC Candidates
ABC reported more than $1.4 million in total income for its city council and mayoral campaigns, along with an additional $361,000 for its school board campaign.
Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together listed $618,000 in total income, far less than ABC.
Over $414,000 was listed as “other income” for ABC, representing 30% of its total income in the party’s filings, as opposed to campaign contributions from Vancouverites.
The Green Party reported the next highest total of other income with approximately $31,000, a large portion was driven by city councillor Pete Fry’s individual campaign.
ABC Vancouver’s Other Income Filings. (Source: Elections BC).
Ken Sim transferred $275,000 from his campaign to ABC’s campaign.
Meanwhile Dominato transferred $80,111 from her campaign and Kirby-Yung, Bligh and Meiszner each transferred $30,900, $25,100 and $2,918 respectively.
Should We Stick With The $1,250 Limit?
According to Elections BC, as of 2022 campaign contributors can donate up to $1,250 per candidate or to a civic political party.
The Local Elections Campaign Financing Act does not prohibit members of the same family from donating with their own money.
There were several instances of children and parents of notable individuals contributing $1,250 to various municipal political parties in 2022.
Should the limits be completely scratched? Or should more checks and balances be implemented?
Comfortable Compensation With Forward Together
ABC spent heavily on advertising, the most of any party, at just over $300,000. For comparison, Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together spent approximately $68,000 on advertising.
Here, ABC spent a whopping $111,000 on radio advertising and roughly $38,000 on newspaper and periodical ads, more than 20 times as much as Forward Together, Green Party, OneCity and TEAM spent on those two mediums.
It is fair to say that ABC’s advertising expenses played a factor in its dominance on election day. Diving deeper into every party’s expenses is where it gets more interesting.
While a majority of the parties did not spend a dollar on salaries and benefits for campaign administrators, four in fact did.
$154,651 - Forward Together
$84,780 - OneCity Vancouver
$22,381 - ABC Vancouver
$17,764 - TEAM for a Liveable Vancouver
While ABC spent by far the most on its campaign at just over $2 million, Forward Together paid its own administrative staff almost seven times the amount that ABC did.
Instead of focusing on advertising its own campaign, Forward Together decided to comfortably compensate its own staff, hoping its reputation as an incumbent would solidify its quest for re-election.
