For the most part, last year's municipal election showed the influence of money, but there were some exceptions.
Author of the article: Phil Tank • Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Publishing date: Jul 03, 2021
Mayor Charlie Clark speaks with media after being declared the winner of the municipal election in Saskatoon, SK on Friday, November 13, 2020. PHOTO BY MATT SMITH /Saskatoon SarPhoenix
With less than a week before the 2020 Saskatoon civic election, three mayoral candidates held a most unusual joint news conference.
Zubair Sheikh, Cary Tarasoff and Mark Zielke united to decry the electoral system, and specifically the mayoral campaign spending limit of $229,497, based on Saskatoon’s population.
Their argument was based on the premise that the campaign spending limit effectively excluded lesser known candidates from competing in a contest that was really about who could raise the most money.
The trio suggested $76,000 as a more appropriate spending limit, noting the $68,776 mayoral spending limit in Regina for the 2020 vote.
Based on the eventual results in Saskatoon — infamously delayed by a severe snowstorm — it’s hard to disagree that money played a significant role in the final results.
Incumbent Mayor Charlie Clark topped the campaign contribution contest with $203,335.41, slightly more than he raised in his initial successful mayoral campaign in 2016.
Former mayor Don Atchison holds the record for campaign contributions with $209,668.77 in 2016, although he only spent $186,764.59.
Clark set a new record for campaign spending in 2020 by becoming the first mayoral candidate to crack the $200,000 mark with $203,335.41. He beat his previous spending record in 2016 by about $5,000.
Clark also topped the polls in the November election that was severely hindered by the snowstorm and attracted the lowest share of voters, 27 per cent, in an election that did not feature three acclamations since 1982.
Clark won the delayed election with about 47 per cent of the vote, followed by former provincial cabinet minister Rob Norris with 26 per cent and Atchison with 20 per cent.
Those results also mirror the campaign spending order; Norris was closest to Clark with $192,045.75 and Atchison was well back at $114,436.
That’s very similar to the spending and results from 2016, when Clark and Atchison each raised and spent more than twice as much as political newcomer Kelley Moore, who collected about 22 per cent of the votes.
Moore warned after the election that she could well be the last unknown to challenge credibly for the mayor’s chair, given the growing influence of money.
Sheikh, Tarsoff and Zielke finished with less than seven per cent of the combined vote. Sheikh’s $32,550 campaign, most of which appears to have been paid for from his own pocket, garnered just 1.23 per cent of the vote.
So where did Clark’s money come from and how did he, Norris and Atchison raise so much during the economic challenges of the pandemic?
Most of the top three campaigns got their donations from individuals, not unions or corporations, but the latter also played a role.
UNION DOLLARS
What’s most striking about Clark’s contributions is the degree to which unions contributed to his campaign.
Clark’s campaign war chest was boosted by $35,500 in union donations, more than 10 times the amount he received from unions in 2016.
The amount of union money in Clark’s campaign was nearly twice the eye-popping $18,000 the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 615 gave to Moore in 2016, which was believed then to be the largest single contribution in Saskatoon civic election history.
Clark’s record-setting campaign was bolstered by three $10,000 donations from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1400, the United Steelworkers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
What’s puzzling about this is not only the huge increase from 2020, but that Clark tried unsuccessfully during his first term as mayor to move toward a ban on donations from unions and corporations.
One likely reason for his union support is that his chief opponent was perceived to be Norris, who, as labour minister in Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government, introduced legislation that was reviled by organized labour.
Part of the law was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.
The wounds from that battle appear to have not quite healed, even though Norris would have had no direct influence on labour laws as Saskatoon mayor.
The Norris campaign appears to have failed to attract any union money, although donors who contribute less than $100 can remain anonymous.
Atchison got a lone $1,000 donation from CUPE Local 59, a huge drop from 2016, when he attracted $12,500 in union donations, including $10,000 from Saskatoon Firefighters Local 80.
Unions tend to donate to the candidate they think will win, which is almost always incumbents, regardless of political leanings. That could explain why a centre-right candidate like Atchison got more than three times as much from unions as left-leaning Clark in 2016.
BUSINESS BUCKS
Norris eclipsed the ATU Local 615 record cash donation in the last election with $20,000 from Kamp Shield Solutions, an Indigenous-owned Saskatoon company.
Norris also got $5,000 from Enviroway Detergent Manufacturing Inc., the same amount the Saskatoon business donated to Clark in 2016.
Atchison received seven $5,000 donations from corporations, including one from Sixth Avenue Arbutus. That’s the company that was spurned by city council, including Clark, in its attempt to establish a solar-powered community on the edge of Saskatoon.
This seems odd, since Norris was the one who repeatedly raised this issue, even well before the election.
One of Atchison’s $5,000 donations came from a numbered company. That’s the largest such donation in the 2020 campaign. Atchison got $7,000 from a numbered corporation in 2016.
All three of the top mayoral candidates received contributions from numbered companies, two apiece from six different entities.
Zielke raised nearly $3,000 in corporate donations, despite his much-touted business connections, so it’s easy to see the disparity between the big boys and the lesser knowns.
NOTABLE DONORS
Norris also set a record for the largest listed in-kind donation — goods or services rather than cash — with $32,064.88 attributed to Bob Baheri, the president and CEO of Enviroway.
Norris also claimed an in-kind donation of $19,629.94 from Dale Richardson, who helped manage his campaign.
Norris got the largest cash donation from an individual in the 2020 campaign, $8,500 from Jillian Loeppky. He also got $5,000 from William Norris.
Clark got $7,000 from the most well-known contributor to any campaign, best-selling author Yann Martel. That’s down from $10,000 for Clark in 2016, when Martel also played a very visible role in Clark’s campaign.
Clark’s famous in-law, Hollywood star Zach Galifianakis, again posted a video in support of Clark’s campaign on social media, as he did in 2016. But again, he was not listed among Clark’s donors.
Ryan Meili, who contributed to Clark’s 2016 campaign before he was elected NDP leader, did not donate last year, although NDP MLA Vicki Mowat gave Clark $250.
People with the last name Buhler, including Clark’s wife, Sarah, gave nearly $10,000 toward his campaign. He also got nearly $5,000 from people with the last name Clark and more than $10,000 from 11 donors with the last name Wiebe.
Atchison received a $9,500 in-kind donation from Brad Fenty and $5,000 from Jack Brodsky and his wife, Shirley. Brodsky ran Atchison’s 2016 campaign.
COUNCIL CASH
In general, council candidates raised far more money than their challengers and crushed them in spending. All nine incumbent councillors who ran in the 2020 election were re-elected, all but one by comfortable margins.
That’s probably why there’s a video circulating on social media with 2020 challengers lobbying for lower spending limits.
But money fails to tell the entire story.
Two council incumbents were outspent by challengers and still won.
Jonathan Naylor outspent Cynthia Block in Ward 6 ($19,764.06 to $18,976.79) and Jim Rhode spent more than Mairin Loewen in Ward 7 ($22,896.43 to $19,117.79).
Both challengers placed a distant second.
Several records were set in the Ward 7 race, with total spending by four candidates topping $63,000. That beats the more than $51,000 spent in 2016 between seven candidates in Ward 6. And it’s nearly as high as the spending in the 2009 mayoral campaign.
Rhode’s campaign ranks as the most expensive ever for a council seat, and he raised almost all of the money through donations. But it was only good enough to garner less than a quarter of the votes.
Naylor appears to have paid for his campaign entirely, but got less than 19 per cent of the vote.
Incumbent Darren Hill spent nearly twice as much as his closest challenger, Kevin Boychuk ($14,977.49 to $7,880.90), yet Hill only barely squeaked by with a 56-vote margin and just under 34 per cent of the vote. Hill’s donations included $4,592.49 from himself.
In vacant Ward 3, Nick Sackville outspent winner David Kirton $12,705.91 to $6,802.80, but Kirton topped the polls with 28 per cent to Sackville’s 22 per cent in an eight-candidate field. Kirton’s higher profile as a radio show host likely helped him win.
Incumbent Zach Jeffries raised the most of any council candidate with $32,711.47 and spent $22,483.79 — which still bested his two challengers combined by more than two to one.
Bev Dubois ($15,259.71) outspent her one Ward 9 challenger by nearly four to one, and Sarina Gersher (Ward 8) outspent her two challengers combined by more than three to one with $16,106.13.
Hilary Gough ($16,124.81) in Ward 2 outspent her challenger by nearly six times and Ward 5’s Randy Donauer ($16,209.24) outspent his challenger more than sevenfold.
Even Troy Davies, who was acclaimed in Ward 4, raised $7,543 and claimed $6,460.59 in expenses — more than most challengers spent on campaigns.
ptank@postmedia.com
twitter.com/thinktankSK
With less than a week before the 2020 Saskatoon civic election, three mayoral candidates held a most unusual joint news conference.
Zubair Sheikh, Cary Tarasoff and Mark Zielke united to decry the electoral system, and specifically the mayoral campaign spending limit of $229,497, based on Saskatoon’s population.
Their argument was based on the premise that the campaign spending limit effectively excluded lesser known candidates from competing in a contest that was really about who could raise the most money.
The trio suggested $76,000 as a more appropriate spending limit, noting the $68,776 mayoral spending limit in Regina for the 2020 vote.
Based on the eventual results in Saskatoon — infamously delayed by a severe snowstorm — it’s hard to disagree that money played a significant role in the final results.
Incumbent Mayor Charlie Clark topped the campaign contribution contest with $203,335.41, slightly more than he raised in his initial successful mayoral campaign in 2016.
Former mayor Don Atchison holds the record for campaign contributions with $209,668.77 in 2016, although he only spent $186,764.59.
Clark set a new record for campaign spending in 2020 by becoming the first mayoral candidate to crack the $200,000 mark with $203,335.41. He beat his previous spending record in 2016 by about $5,000.
Clark also topped the polls in the November election that was severely hindered by the snowstorm and attracted the lowest share of voters, 27 per cent, in an election that did not feature three acclamations since 1982.
Clark won the delayed election with about 47 per cent of the vote, followed by former provincial cabinet minister Rob Norris with 26 per cent and Atchison with 20 per cent.
Those results also mirror the campaign spending order; Norris was closest to Clark with $192,045.75 and Atchison was well back at $114,436.
That’s very similar to the spending and results from 2016, when Clark and Atchison each raised and spent more than twice as much as political newcomer Kelley Moore, who collected about 22 per cent of the votes.
Moore warned after the election that she could well be the last unknown to challenge credibly for the mayor’s chair, given the growing influence of money.
Sheikh, Tarsoff and Zielke finished with less than seven per cent of the combined vote. Sheikh’s $32,550 campaign, most of which appears to have been paid for from his own pocket, garnered just 1.23 per cent of the vote.
So where did Clark’s money come from and how did he, Norris and Atchison raise so much during the economic challenges of the pandemic?
Most of the top three campaigns got their donations from individuals, not unions or corporations, but the latter also played a role.
UNION DOLLARS
What’s most striking about Clark’s contributions is the degree to which unions contributed to his campaign.
Clark’s campaign war chest was boosted by $35,500 in union donations, more than 10 times the amount he received from unions in 2016.
The amount of union money in Clark’s campaign was nearly twice the eye-popping $18,000 the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 615 gave to Moore in 2016, which was believed then to be the largest single contribution in Saskatoon civic election history.
Clark’s record-setting campaign was bolstered by three $10,000 donations from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1400, the United Steelworkers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
What’s puzzling about this is not only the huge increase from 2020, but that Clark tried unsuccessfully during his first term as mayor to move toward a ban on donations from unions and corporations.
One likely reason for his union support is that his chief opponent was perceived to be Norris, who, as labour minister in Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government, introduced legislation that was reviled by organized labour.
Part of the law was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.
The wounds from that battle appear to have not quite healed, even though Norris would have had no direct influence on labour laws as Saskatoon mayor.
The Norris campaign appears to have failed to attract any union money, although donors who contribute less than $100 can remain anonymous.
Atchison got a lone $1,000 donation from CUPE Local 59, a huge drop from 2016, when he attracted $12,500 in union donations, including $10,000 from Saskatoon Firefighters Local 80.
Unions tend to donate to the candidate they think will win, which is almost always incumbents, regardless of political leanings. That could explain why a centre-right candidate like Atchison got more than three times as much from unions as left-leaning Clark in 2016.
BUSINESS BUCKS
Norris eclipsed the ATU Local 615 record cash donation in the last election with $20,000 from Kamp Shield Solutions, an Indigenous-owned Saskatoon company.
Norris also got $5,000 from Enviroway Detergent Manufacturing Inc., the same amount the Saskatoon business donated to Clark in 2016.
Atchison received seven $5,000 donations from corporations, including one from Sixth Avenue Arbutus. That’s the company that was spurned by city council, including Clark, in its attempt to establish a solar-powered community on the edge of Saskatoon.
This seems odd, since Norris was the one who repeatedly raised this issue, even well before the election.
One of Atchison’s $5,000 donations came from a numbered company. That’s the largest such donation in the 2020 campaign. Atchison got $7,000 from a numbered corporation in 2016.
All three of the top mayoral candidates received contributions from numbered companies, two apiece from six different entities.
Zielke raised nearly $3,000 in corporate donations, despite his much-touted business connections, so it’s easy to see the disparity between the big boys and the lesser knowns.
NOTABLE DONORS
Norris also set a record for the largest listed in-kind donation — goods or services rather than cash — with $32,064.88 attributed to Bob Baheri, the president and CEO of Enviroway.
Norris also claimed an in-kind donation of $19,629.94 from Dale Richardson, who helped manage his campaign.
Norris got the largest cash donation from an individual in the 2020 campaign, $8,500 from Jillian Loeppky. He also got $5,000 from William Norris.
Clark got $7,000 from the most well-known contributor to any campaign, best-selling author Yann Martel. That’s down from $10,000 for Clark in 2016, when Martel also played a very visible role in Clark’s campaign.
Clark’s famous in-law, Hollywood star Zach Galifianakis, again posted a video in support of Clark’s campaign on social media, as he did in 2016. But again, he was not listed among Clark’s donors.
Ryan Meili, who contributed to Clark’s 2016 campaign before he was elected NDP leader, did not donate last year, although NDP MLA Vicki Mowat gave Clark $250.
People with the last name Buhler, including Clark’s wife, Sarah, gave nearly $10,000 toward his campaign. He also got nearly $5,000 from people with the last name Clark and more than $10,000 from 11 donors with the last name Wiebe.
Atchison received a $9,500 in-kind donation from Brad Fenty and $5,000 from Jack Brodsky and his wife, Shirley. Brodsky ran Atchison’s 2016 campaign.
COUNCIL CASH
In general, council candidates raised far more money than their challengers and crushed them in spending. All nine incumbent councillors who ran in the 2020 election were re-elected, all but one by comfortable margins.
That’s probably why there’s a video circulating on social media with 2020 challengers lobbying for lower spending limits.
But money fails to tell the entire story.
Two council incumbents were outspent by challengers and still won.
Jonathan Naylor outspent Cynthia Block in Ward 6 ($19,764.06 to $18,976.79) and Jim Rhode spent more than Mairin Loewen in Ward 7 ($22,896.43 to $19,117.79).
Both challengers placed a distant second.
Several records were set in the Ward 7 race, with total spending by four candidates topping $63,000. That beats the more than $51,000 spent in 2016 between seven candidates in Ward 6. And it’s nearly as high as the spending in the 2009 mayoral campaign.
Rhode’s campaign ranks as the most expensive ever for a council seat, and he raised almost all of the money through donations. But it was only good enough to garner less than a quarter of the votes.
Naylor appears to have paid for his campaign entirely, but got less than 19 per cent of the vote.
Incumbent Darren Hill spent nearly twice as much as his closest challenger, Kevin Boychuk ($14,977.49 to $7,880.90), yet Hill only barely squeaked by with a 56-vote margin and just under 34 per cent of the vote. Hill’s donations included $4,592.49 from himself.
In vacant Ward 3, Nick Sackville outspent winner David Kirton $12,705.91 to $6,802.80, but Kirton topped the polls with 28 per cent to Sackville’s 22 per cent in an eight-candidate field. Kirton’s higher profile as a radio show host likely helped him win.
Incumbent Zach Jeffries raised the most of any council candidate with $32,711.47 and spent $22,483.79 — which still bested his two challengers combined by more than two to one.
Bev Dubois ($15,259.71) outspent her one Ward 9 challenger by nearly four to one, and Sarina Gersher (Ward 8) outspent her two challengers combined by more than three to one with $16,106.13.
Hilary Gough ($16,124.81) in Ward 2 outspent her challenger by nearly six times and Ward 5’s Randy Donauer ($16,209.24) outspent his challenger more than sevenfold.
Even Troy Davies, who was acclaimed in Ward 4, raised $7,543 and claimed $6,460.59 in expenses — more than most challengers spent on campaigns.
ptank@postmedia.com
twitter.com/thinktankSK
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