This article has been corrected from its original version with the following changes:
- Lloyd Longfield's campaign did not receive any funds from the federal Liberal party. A $100,000 transfer originally attributed to the federal party in the story was actually made from the local Guelph riding association to the campaign, not from the federal party as was originally stated.
- Lloyd Longfield's campaign spent $108,379 against the campaign limit of $127,40 – $19,000 less than allowed. Money spent pre-writ and post-election do not count against campaign spending related to the limit established by Elections Canada.
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Lloyd Longfield spent $131,709 overall on his election campaign in last October’s federal election.
That's the total listed by Election Canada for Longfield's Summary of Electoral Campaign Expenses and Other Outflows for last year's election. The amount includes money that did not count against the election limit because it came before the writ was dropped and after the election was over.
The limit for election spending for the Guelph riding was $127,407. Longfield spent $108,000, just over $19,000 under the limit.
Money spent pre-writ and post-writ, which are not subject to the campaign limit, pushed the election campaign total to roughly $131,000.
Longfield won the local seat for the second straight election handily, with 30,497 votes, almost 11,000 more than runner-up Steve Dyck of the Green Party.
Christian Heritage Party candidate Gordon Truscott spent $39,786, including six contributions totalling $6,120, of which $4,800 was his own money.
New Democrat Party candidate Aisha Jahangir spent $32,292, with 70 contributors, 61 of them contributing $200 or less.
People’s Party of Canada Candidate Mark Paralovos spent $1,520, all via 55 anonymous contributors, with 42 of those under $200.
The election expenses for Dyck, Conservative candidate Ashish Sachan, Communist Party candidate Juanita Burnett and independents Kornelis Klevering and Michael Wassilyn have not yet been reported. It is not known if they have yet submitted them to Elections Canada. Inquiries to Dyck and Sachan were not returned.
Election expenses were supposed to be submitted within four months following the election, with the option of a candidate applying for an extension of the deadline.
Elections Canada says that due to COVID-19, anyone that applied for an extension has been given until June 30 to submit them.
In 2015 Longfield spent $211,040 on his campaign, when the spending limit was $239,632.
He wasn’t the biggest spender that year, as the Green Party’s Gord Miller spent $226,402.
Spending limits are set depending on a variety of factors, most notably the length of the campaign. In 2015 the length of the campaign (from the dropping of the writ to election day) was twice as long as it was in 2019.
