Calls for campaign spending reforms
Posted Mar 6, 2011 7:52 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Even though he spent 1.1-million-dollars in his failed bid to win the mayor’s chair, Ric McIver says he’s in favor of election spending reforms.
McIver lost his bid for the mayor’s seat to Naheed Nenshi, who spent slightly more than 400-thousand-dollars during his campaign.
A former alderman, McIver adds he had more to spend than other candidates because he was basically campaigning for three years, compared to a matter of months for the majority of the other candidates.
The Calgary Herald notes that’s one reason why incumbents have an advantage over newcomers at election time. Working municipal politicians have three years to hold fund-raising events and build war chests.
That’s not right according to Shawn Kao who ran unsuccessfully in Ward 14. He believes newcomers need a fighting chance when they enter an electoral race.
Campaign spending figures for the October 2010 vote were released last week.
The biggest disparity in the aldermanic races was in Ward 8 where incumbent John Marr spent 252-thousand-dollars to retain his seat. He won the ward by less than 12-hundred votes but spent five times what his challenger, Zak Pashak, did at 45-thousand-dollars.
