The Conservative Party raised more than $20.5-million in the first half of 2024, outpacing the governing Liberals’ fundraising by more than $13.6-million so far this year, and its own total by this point last year—a record-smashing four quarters for the official opposition—by more than $4-million. 

Yet, with nearly $7-million in fundraising this year, and nearly $3-million more in the bank at the end of 2023, the Liberals still seem to be holding their fire while the Conservatives and NDP fire shots across the bow with dueling cross-country ad campaigns launching this month ahead of two important September byelections.

In the second quarter of 2024—covering April 1 to June 30—the Conservatives raised a total of $9.83-million, averaging $187 from 52,519 individual contributions. While that total amounts to a more than $865,000 decrease in fundraising, the party increased its individual contributions by nearly 1,500 compared to the first three months of this year. The Conservatives’ $20.52-million combined fundraising total for this year is also well on its way to surpassing last year’s record-shattering $35.26-million total, as it had only raised $16.27-million by the middle of 2023. 

While the Tories still maintain a more than $6-million lead on the governing Liberals, who raised $3.77-million from 28,523 individual contributions, the Grits’ fundraising numbers are slowly ticking upward. Both the Liberals’ fundraising and contribution totals are slightly higher than their totals in Q1 2024, and higher than any other quarter in 2023 and 2022, with the exception of the fourth quarter of those years.

The Liberals were also the only party to improve both their fundraising and contribution totals. The NDP raised $1.29-million last quarter from 14,063 individual contributions, a slight dip from the $1.34-million from 14,699 contributions in the first quarter of 2024, for a total of $2.64-million so far this year.

The Green Party of Canada had the fourth-highest fundraising total for the quarter, with $376,076 from 4,210 individual contributions, followed by the Bloc Québécois with $321,806 from 1,841 contributions. The People’s Party of Canada also had its worst fundraising results since its formation in 2021, raising $140,057 from 1,850 contributions. 

Liberals need to spend money to make money, say politicos

Former Liberal staffer Kait LaForce told The Hill Times that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s (Papineau, Que.) brand has been “struggling” in recent years, particularly since Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.) took the reins of the official opposition in late 2022. This has discouraged support and donations, and negatively affected polling year over year, with the Conservatives now polling between 15 and 20 points ahead. 

LaForce, now a senior consultant with Summa Strategies, contrasted those recent numbers to the peak of Liberal fundraising and support in the lead-up to the 2015 election, and the early years of the Liberals’ mandate—when the “Trudeau brand” was its strongest—and the year-by-year decrease since then.  

Similarly, the Conservatives’ fundraising has surged since late 2022, riding on the momentum of Poilievre’s elevation to leader of the party. 

“The Conservatives are noticeably putting a lot of effort into a refreshed Conservative brand, as well as elevating Poilievre’s individual brand,” LaForce said, adding that the party’s investment in the rebrand has presumably had a positive impact on the increased returns on support.

As part of that rebrand, the Conservatives spent $3-million on ads in the summer of 2023 in an attempt to (re)introduce Poilievre to Canadians. That campaign amounted to nearly half of the party’s entire $8.5-million advertising spend for that year, according to the party’s annual financial returns for 2023, which Elections Canada posted online in early July.

In comparison, the Liberals spent roughly $381,000 on advertising in 2023, while the NDP spent only about $42,000.

While the Liberals may have far less to spend on advertising than the Conservatives, it seems like “someone’s turned on the taps,” if only slightly, said GT&Co principal Cole Hogan.

Hogan, who has worked on digital ads for Ontario Premier Doug Ford and ex-Alberta premier Jason Kenney, regularly tracks the federal parties’ advertising spending on Meta, one of the few social media platforms to publicize such data and make it available in Canada.

According to Meta’s Ad Library, in the 90 days before the fundraising numbers were released—from May 2 to July 30—the Conservative Party of Canada and Poilievre’s official pages spent a combined total of $398,295. 

In comparison, the Liberal Party and Trudeau’s pages had spent a combined $78,825 on ads, followed by the New Democrats and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, B.C.) with a combined total of $51,639.

However, in the past month, the Liberals have begun increasing that spending week-over-week.

Despite the Liberals’ combined ad buy of $10,618 from July 20-26 amounting to less than half of the Conservatives’ combined $25,852, it represents a nearly 50 per cent increase from the just over $7,000 it spent a week before, which was itself a 105 per cent increase from the $3,500 paid in the previous seven-day period.

While websites like Google, YouTube, and X don’t offer the same level of transparency as Meta, Hogan said that if parties are allocating a certain amount on one platform, if they’re smart, they will be spending something “at least parallel” on the rest.

Hogan said the Liberals’ ad spending is “ticking up slowly but surely” and that he would be watching for any rapid week-to-week jumps as an indication of an imminent election. However, in his view, neither the Liberals’ spending nor fundraising totals foretell a writ-drop any time soon.

Yet, even with a lower total than the Conservatives “unprecedented” fundraising success since Poilievre became leader, Hogan said the Liberals still have the cash to spend. According to the Liberals’ annual return, it had $2.8-million on hand to finish 2023.

“They have the money to do it, so it escapes me why they are holding fire,” Hogan said, adding that he doesn’t buy the explanation that the lack of spending is due to a principled stance against negative attack ads.

“There’s got to be a back room where they’re polling reactions or focus-grouping how people feel about Poilievre and what his negatives are,” Hogan said, adding that if that is true, he can’t understand why not a single ad has materialized from those efforts.

“The only thing that I can assume is that they’ve done the focus grouping, and nothing strong has come up, so they’re not confident enough to pool their money behind it,” Hogan said.

Conservatives’ attack ads show the NDP is on the radar, says Richer

While the Liberals have yet to decide on a course of action to stunt Poilievre’s momentum and how much to spend on it, the Conservatives are expanding their lines of attack. 

The Tories launched a new cross-country ad campaign focused not on Trudeau, but “sellout Singh,” as the 30-second ad released on July 30 dubs the NDP leader. 

The ad features an image of Singh on the cover of a fictitious “luxury pensioner monthly,” accusing him of signing the confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberals in March 2022 to delay the election until he qualifies for his pension. 

Singh, who was elected to the House of Commons in a 2019 byelection, will qualify for his pension on Feb. 25, 2025. 

A second ad, released on July 31, reiterates that same line of attack, slightly varying from the previous ad’s “[Singh] gets his pension, you pay the price” to “he gets his pension. Trudeau gets power.”

Mélanie Richer, who previously served as Singh’s director of communications, told The Hill Times that despite the personal attack, she views it as a good sign for the NDP. 

“When a party that says it’s going after the prime minister and his government spends time and money attacking you personally, that just means that you’re on their radar, and that’s where the party wants to be,” Richer said, now with Earnscliffe Strategies. “For the party, this says the Conservatives know the choice in the next election will be between themselves and the NDP, and we welcome that.” 

Unlike the Liberals, however, Richer noted that the Conservative ads follow the NDP’s own series of ads to launch the party’s “Change the Rules tour,” which the New Democrats say is their largest pre-election ad buy since 2015.

Richer said that while the party is adept at making every dollar count—having personally worked in elections in which the party had no money and still “made it work”—with the party now officially debt-free and with possibly a year and change to raise more money, she feels the NDP is well positioned to challenge both the Liberals and Conservatives when the time comes. 

In the meantime, Richer said she has been told by the party that even more ad spending is forthcoming ahead of the Sept. 16 byelections in Elmwood-Transcona, Man., and LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, Que.

As for the actual content of the Conservatives’ broadside on Singh, Richer said going for a personal jab suggests that it was the only available line of attack. 

“They can’t attack his record because they know people actually quite like the things [Singh] has gotten done, and the Conservatives have nothing to show for themselves,” Richer said. “They may think their ad is super cutting-edge, but I think it just validates what Singh is doing.”

sbenson@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

First- and second-quarter fundraising, 2024

Second-quarter fundraising comparison, 2015-present

Second-quarter individual contribution comparison, 2015-present

 

Stuart Benson began covering Parliament Hill in early 2022, reporting on political party apparatuses and fundraising, policing and public safety, women and youth, marijuana, heritage, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party. He is also The Hill Times’ regular Party Central columnist. Benson previously covered local news and municipal politics at The Low Down to Hull and Back News in Wakefield, Que., where he began his professional journalism career in February 2020. He also won a Quebec Community Newspaper Award in 2021 for Best News Story and Best Agricultural Story, as well as winning a Canadian Community Newspaper award for Best Campus News story in 2020. See all stories BY STUART BENSON