Third-party spending

How interest groups get their message across

By Laura Carlin, CBC News

From anti-abortion groups to business organizations, student groups and concerned citizens, so-called third parties view election campaigns as a perfect opportunity to get their point across. A "third party" is a person or group that is participating in an election through advertising or advocacy.

Third parties usually get involved either to influence voters, to influence which issues are discussed in a campaign, or both.

Third parties are often interest groups that follow particular issues, e.g. the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association and the Canadian Federation of Students. However, individuals can also register as a third party or form a group specifically for the election. An example from 2006: Citizens for Valeri, a group supportive of candidate Tony Valeri.

In the 2006 election, third parties registered with Elections Canada spent more than $1 million trying to make their voices heard.

The biggest spender was the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of B.C. (RFOCBC), which spent $126,787.71, mostly on radio ads opposing the Liberal gun policies, including the ban on handguns.

Most third parties didn't come anywhere close to the spending limits mandated by Elections Canada. New rules, in place as of the 2004 election, say no third party can spend more than $3,000 (indexed to inflation) in a particular riding, or $150,000 (indexed to inflation) nationally.

Because of the limits and current advertising rates, many third parties opt to either concentrate their spending on certain ridings or regions, or use their allowable expenses to tell their members how to become active locally.

That's the strategy employed by the Council of Canadians. In 2006, the council sent 100,000 Voters Guides to chapters across the country in an effort to teach those members how to make their voices heard. They also put up three billboards, in Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto, and co-operated with a few other organizations to place an ad in the Globe and Mail newspaper. "We don't advocate any party or any individual candidate, but we try to educate the public about the issues of the parties that we campaign," said John Urquhart, the group's executive director. He said the goal was to make sure "those issues are discussed and debated, and often they're not in election campaigns. They get overwhelmed by the regrettable shallower aspects of electioneering."

The group still hasn't worked out a strategy for this election.

But Urquhart isn't complaining. He says it's a good thing spending is limited. "I think there needed to be controls on the amounts that corporations, in particular, can spend to influence an election. We're a citizens' organization," he said, "Our money comes from individuals across the country. We would never be able to spend the allowable maximum across the country." The National Citizens Coalition had an entirely different response to those restrictions in 2006.

"It denies the right of all Canadians to free election speech," vice-president Gerry Nicholls said. "It gives politicians a monopoly on speech during an election." The NCC isn't in favour of any restrictions on third-party spending.

Despite the debate over how much can be spent, it is difficult to say whether the spending is effective at all.

In the 1988 election, many business interests spoke out about free trade. The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform estimated their spending at $4.7 million. Researchers later had a hard time figuring out whether their involvement had any effect on the outcome of the election. One suggested there was no discernable change in voting patterns, while another suggested the pro-free trade ads actually had a slightly negative effect on the Conservative party they were trying to support.

In 2000, at least three groups were supporting Liberal Anne McLellan in her Edmonton Centre riding. She won by just 733 votes. In 2006, two groups registered in favour of Tony Valeri in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek; he lost.

In the United States, third parties are much more organized than groups in Canada. U.S. groups are also limited in how much they can give to candidates, but can spend as much as they like on advertising. Their impact is much greater as a result.

The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" campaign during the 2004 election questioned presidential candidate John Kerry's war record. It was organized by a third party, and became an issue that Republicans and Democrats felt the need to address.

Canadian third-party groups can't spend unlimited amounts, and election law says they can't attempt to circumvent the spending limits by splitting into several groups. However, it's unclear whether a group could collect large amounts and distribute it in smaller amounts to third parties to spend.

So far, there are no limits on how much individuals, companies or unions can donate to third parties, but all contributions over $200 must be included in a report to Elections Canada. There are rules against donations from foreign sources and governments.

One political party says it was formed before the 2006 election partly because of the restrictions on spending by third-party groups. The Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada figured that if they couldn't spend as a third party, why not register as a political party to get their message across.

Before the spending restrictions were put in place, the AACEV acted as a third party, spending money in swing ridings to influence the vote. "We did ads, we did literature inserted in a number of publications that dropped in the key swing areas, and we did telemarketing, found the key swing voters and got them out," said the party's leader, Liz White. Now, she says, the restrictions are too tight: "You can barely put phones in and print a couple of pieces of literature for $3,000."

Source: Elections Canada