{"id":27638,"date":"2019-02-25T10:55:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T15:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/?p=27638"},"modified":"2019-02-25T10:55:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T15:55:08","slug":"doug-fords-pc-party-holds-blistering-lead-in-2019-fundraising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/local\/gta\/doug-fords-pc-party-holds-blistering-lead-in-2019-fundraising\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug Ford&#8217;s PC party holds blistering lead in 2019 fundraising"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Doug Ford&#8217;s Progressive Conservative Party is out-fundraising its main political rivals by a factor of 10 so far this year, racking up a war chest that is poised to grow even larger next week.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0PCs have reported a total of $506,118 in political donations in 2019, according to current figures\u00a0in the\u00a0Elections Ontario database. By contrast, the New Democrats and Liberals combined have raised less than one-tenth that amount.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The NDP has\u00a0reported $30,271 in donations from 222 donors.<\/li>\n<li>Ontario Liberal Party: $20,081 from just 38 donors.<\/li>\n<li>The Green Party of Ontario has raised $10,310 from 32 donors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On Wednesday, the PCs will hold what they are calling\u00a0the biggest fundraiser in the party&#8217;s history:\u00a0a $1,250-a-plate dinner at the Toronto Congress Centre.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Doug Ford and our Ontario PC Caucus accomplished a great deal in 2018,&#8221;\u00a0says the invitation on the party&#8217;s website.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is much more to achieve in 2019, and to continue getting things done\u00a0for the people, we need your help to build up our Party&#8217;s financial resources as quickly as possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To be the biggest fundraiser in the party&#8217;s history, the dinner would have to raise more than the\u00a0record $2 million\u00a0that Patrick Brown brought in during his Toronto leader&#8217;s dinner in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Ford&#8217;s party is trying to build on its\u00a0fundraising momentum from the election year of 2018, during which the PCs\u00a0amassed far more in donations than all the other parties combined.<\/p>\n<p>The PCs raised $9.2 million in 2018, according to data compiled by CBC News from the Elections Ontario\u00a0website,\u00a0tallying\u00a0donations at all levels:\u00a0to the provincial party, to riding associations and to individual candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Total donations to the NDP in 2018 amounted to $4.2 million, according to the Elections Ontario database.\u00a0The Liberals reported $3.5 million in donations and the Green Party $1.05 million.<\/p>\n<p>The PC party&#8217;s 2018 fundraising total included\u00a0$5.5\u00a0million\u00a0logged as election-period\u00a0donations and\u00a0$3.7 million\u00a0reported as annual contributions.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s separate\u00a0from another\u00a0$2.4 million\u00a0raised in 2018 by the four candidates in the PC party leadership race: Ford, Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney and Tanya Granic Allen.<\/p>\n<p>The PCs have been the top fundraisers in each of the past three years, amassing a\u00a0record $12.9 million in 2016\u00a0and collecting\u00a0more than the Liberals and NDP combined in 2017<\/p>\n<p>All parties are raising far less now than they did before 2017, when the\u00a0Wynne government banned corporate and union donations.<\/p>\n<p>To make up the shortfall, each party now gets an\u00a0annual\u00a0per-vote allowance\u00a0funded from the provincial\u00a0treasury, but Ford has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/toronto\/doug-ford-ontario-political-party-per-vote-allowances-1.4846892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">promis<\/a>e<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/toronto\/doug-ford-ontario-political-party-per-vote-allowances-1.4846892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">d<\/a>\u00a0to end that practice.<\/p>\n<p>Per-vote subsidies to each party in 2019 will be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PC: $5.5 million.<\/li>\n<li>NDP $4.6 million.<\/li>\n<li>Liberal $2.7 million.<\/li>\n<li>Green $628,000.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doug Ford&#8217;s Progressive Conservative Party is out-fundraising its main political rivals by a factor of 10 so far this year, racking up a war chest that is poised to grow &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":23959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3538],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Ontario-Premier-Doug-Ford-will-use-a-trip-to-a-Detroit-auto-show-to-meet-with-executives-from-GM-and-several-other-automakers-Monday.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}