Show me the Money (Trail)!

Several people have asked me where the money is coming from to fund my campaign expenses. There is a good argument to be made for requiring all candidates for public office to disclose the source of their campaign funding in real time – a requirement I would support wholeheartedly. Where the money is coming from can tell you a great deal about a candidate.

Nearly all of the money I have raised has come from private individuals – mostly from a Campaign Fundraiser I held in the early summer at the Aeolian Hall at which there was a silent auction for donated items ( a great evening, by the way, with fantastic food and music). There were a couple of successful bids for items that came in over $100, but the highest individual successful bid was for a city bike at $305. In addition to that I have had several donations by private individuals, none over $100 but two, and those were for $500 and $250.

I have had no donations from corporations, and haven’t solicited any (though I had an offer of funds from one of the Toronto developers here in Old East, which I turned down) and one donation from a union, but the union donation (for the maximum $750) was from my own union (OPSEU), a provincial union of which I have been a member for 25 years, and which doesn’t do “business” with the City of London. [Disclosure: I was retained as a Realtor on land assembly matters, which is my full time job, for both the Medallion Corporation and the Terrasan Group of Companies – the developers of the two largest redevelopment projects here in Old East – but this was some time ago, and it’s what I do to earn a living.]

I suspect that I will also be self-financing some campaign expenses, though I haven’t as yet.

I would support electoral finance reform outlawing any contributions to municipal campaigns other than from private individuals. I think it’s a great idea. We should try it sometime.

As an aside, I would also support changes to the municipal election by-law outlawing the placing of election signs on public lands, as a way to deal with “sign pollution”. Let’s keep signs where they belong – on the properties of people who actually vote. In fact, I will commit to bringing these two changes forward – no donations other than from private individuals, and no signs on public lands – when I am elected on October 25^th. [Disclosure: I have put up signs on public lands in this campaign, not many but a few, but remember who I am running against. The vast majority of my signs are on the front lawns of my supporters.]

I challenge the other candidates in Ward 4 to be equally candid about where their money is coming from, before the election. Let’s give voters all the information they need to make good decisions.