Former Liberal MLA Richard Lee spent the most money on his re-election campaign when compared to the other candidates who ran in Burnaby’s four ridings.
According to financial reports released by Elections B.C. this week, Lee, who lost the riding of Burnaby North to NDP candidate Janet Routledge by 2,157 votes, spent $141,567. All of that money came from the B.C. Liberal Party.
Routledge spent $99,720, receiving $87,196 from the B.C. NDP and another $14,113 from unions. Green candidate Peter Hallschmid expended a total of $1,144, dollars that were provided by his party.
In the Burnaby-Lougheed riding, NDP MLA Katrina Chen spent $127,846. The province’s new minister of state for child care received nearly $47,000 in individual, corporate and union donations. The New Democrats topped Chen’s account with $101,179.
Punk rocker Joe Keithley, who ran for the B.C. Greens, spent $14,854. The Greens pitched in $6,764 and he declared $2,715 of his own money.
In Burnaby-Deer Lake, the Liberals backed Karen Wang with $99,495 (she collected $930 in individual and corporate contributions). In total, she spent $107,745.
Wang lost to NDP candidate Anne Kang, who cited $109,594 in expenditures. Most of Kang’s cash flow was covered by the New Democrats, with a chunk ($9,549) covered by unions. Rick McGowan, who ran for the Greens, ran a campaign that cost $1,445, which was mostly paid for by the party.
Burnaby-Edmonds NDP incumbent Raj Chouhan claimed $85,353 in expenses, with all but $2,726 coming from the NDP. The report notes a $2,600 donation was made by Gateway Casinos. Meanwhile, Green MLA hopeful Valentine Wu spent $3,130 on his campaign, which was covered by party coffers.
Liberal candidates Steve Darling (Burnaby-Lougheed) and Garrison Duke (Burnaby-Edmonds) have yet to submit their financial reports. The filing deadline was Aug. 8.
Darling and Duke have until Sept. 7 to submit their documents with a late filing fee of $500. Should a candidate not file at all, they can’t run in the next general election. To avoid disqualification from running again, a candidate would need to foot a $10,000 bill after the Sept. 7 deadline.
When reached by the NOW, Darling’s campaign manager George Psefteas said they’re taking “a little extra time.”
“As you would understand, the time of year means people are in and out of town and we wanted to ensure that everything was done correctly, so we are taking a little extra time to ensure full and accurate completion,” he wrote in an email.
Justine Galo, Duke’s campaign manager, noted her team is in the process of submitting its numbers before the late deadline.
“It took us a while to actually get our financial agent who was also working full-time as a bookkeeper. ... It’s coming together. There’s just a few more things we want to make sure are all added up and accounted for,” she said.
Burnaby city councillor James Wang ran in the riding of Vancouver-Langara for the NDP and lost to Liberal MLA Michael Lee by 1,990 votes. Wang claimed $244,301 in expenditures and $249,434 in income (more than $10,000 came from unions and corporations and the rest was money from the party).
