The third quarter (Q3) fundraising figures were posted by Elections Canada yesterday evening, and for the first time since Pierre Poilievre became Conservative leader his party was not the fundraising champion.
Mark Carney’s Liberals raised $4,948,000 from nearly 36,000 contributions during the months of July, August and September, putting them almost $1 million ahead of the Conservatives. The Conservatives raised $3,971,000 from about 29,000 contributions (which are legally capped at $1,775 per year, per donor).
The Liberals haven’t won a fundraising quarter since the fourth quarter of 2021, just after the federal election that year, and the gap of $976,000 between the Liberals and Conservatives is the biggest one since the end of 2016 — 10 years ago. This is also only the seventh quarter out of the last 87 quarters since the implementation of the current fundraising rules in Canada in which the Liberals have come out on top.
That the Liberals topped fundraising in the third quarter is both a sign of the party’s strength as well as a signal of the Conservatives’ weakness, as it wasn’t merely a good quarter for one party or a bad quarter for the other. It was both. Let’s delve into the numbers.