Elections Canada will be sending out some big cheques this week to the country’s major political parties. These cheques, totalling about $27.2–million, represent the amount of money that taxpayers (via the federal government) reimburse to politicians to cover the cost of competing for seats in a federal election.
A quick and completely unscientific analysis shows that the Bloc Quebecois got the best “value” for their dollars spent, in the sense that the cost of winning a seat for the Bloc was cheapest. NDP seats cost the most and, of course, the Green Party lost everything.
From today’s Elections Canada press release:
The Chief Electoral Officer authorizes reimbursement of 50 percent of the eligible registered party's election expenses, paid by its registered agents, upon receipt of the party's election expenses return, the auditor's report and a declaration by the party's chief agent concerning the election expenses.
The following amounts have been reimbursed:
Political party Amount reimbursed Bloc Québécois $2,261,702.49 Conservative Party of Canada $9,009,589.64 Green Party of Canada $455,489.54 Liberal Party of Canada $8,719,845.00 New Democratic Party $6,735,433.46
So, since the taxpayer picks up half the cost of fighting an election, you could double all those amounts to come to the grand total each of those parties spent to win seats in January’s election. Doing that you would get this table:
| Political party | Total Spent |
| Conservative Party of Canada | $18,019,179.28 |
| Liberal Party of Canada | $17,439,690.00 |
| New Democratic Party | $13,470,866.92 |
| Bloc Québécois | $4,523,404.98 |
| Green Party of Canada | $910,979.08 |
And what about the “value” of each dollar spent politicking? Well, based on what they spent and what they earned in terms of seats, here’s how much each seat “cost”:
| Political party |
Seats won |
Per seat cost |
| Green Party of Canada | 0 |
Lost it all |
| New Democratic Party | 29 | $464,512.65 |
| Liberal Party of Canada | 102 | $170,977.35 |
| Conservative Party of Canada | 125 | $144,153.43 |
| Bloc Québécois | 51 | $88,694.22 |