Ontario NDP outspent Doug Ford's PCs in losing election campaign

The Ontario NDP spent more on its 2022 election campaign than Doug Ford's victorious Progressive Conservatives, according to new financial statements from the parties. 

Documents recently filed to Elections Ontario show the New Democrats' campaign period expenses totalled just shy of $13 million, while the PC Party spent $11.5 million and the Ontario Liberal Party spent $9.6 million. 

The New Democrats went into the 2022 election saying their campaign was better funded than ever. They came out of it on election night with just 31 seats, nine fewer than in 2018, prompting leader Andrea Horwath to resign, while Ford's PCs won an even larger majority of 83 seats. 

The Liberals won just eight ridings, so that means it cost the party's provincial campaign roughly $1.2 million for each seat it captured.       

Advertising is the largest single campaign expense for all of Ontario's major political parties. The financial statements show the NDP spent the most on advertising during the campaign, $7.1 million, followed closely by the Liberals at nearly $7 million, while the winning PCs spent $6.5 million. 

"We feel we got good value for the money that we spent in terms of getting our message out to the people of Ontario and obviously we're very pleased with the result in the end," said Kory Teneycke, Ford's campaign manager in both the 2022 and 2018 elections. 

The Green Party of Ontario spent $1.6 million on its provincial campaign, with nearly $880,000 of that on advertising, Green Leader Mike Schreiner was the party's only winning candidate, taking the riding of Guelph. 

Beyond advertising, the financial statements filed by each party break down how they spent their campaign funds on such items as travel, polling, staff salaries and even the election night "victory party." 

Ironically, the losing NDP spent more on its "victory party" ($293,200) than the PCs ($198,644). The Liberals spent just $18,610. 

Party spending during the election campaign is subject to limits, and advertising spending is restricted in the six-month period leading up the official start of the campaign. 

Before pre-campaign advertising restrictions took effect in November of 2021, both the New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives mounted advertising efforts that absolutely dwarfed what the Liberals chose to offer. 

Financial statements for last year show the New Democrats spent $4.9 million on advertising in 2021, while the PCs spent $4.3 million. In sharp contrast, the Ontario Liberal Party spent less than $35,000.

The spending difference became particularly apparent in the autumn of 2021 when the NDP and PCs each launched attack ads against the then-leader of the Liberals, Steven Del Duca, while Liberal advertising was nowhere to be seen.

Those 2021 statements also show how the PC Party dominated fundraising in the run-up to the election year. The PCs received $9.8 million in political contributions in 2021, significantly more than the combined total of donations to the NDP ($3.4 million) Liberals ($2.35 million) and Greens ($277,000).