Party expenditures on Ontario election.

Obviously democracy does not come cheap. I wonder if the Tories and NDP will fire their marketing managers i.e. leaders on the grounds that they did not deliver enough seats for money invested. This is from the Globe and Mail.

Liberals outspent political opponents, while NDP racked up biggest deficit
KAREN HOWLETT

From Friday's Globe and Mail

April 11, 2008 at 4:40 AM EDT

TORONTO — Ontario's two opposition parties went heavily into debt during last fall's election campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to oust the governing Liberals, documents show.

The Progressive Conservative Party spent nearly twice as much as it raised, leaving it with a deficit of $2.9-million, according to election finance records released yesterday.

All three parties emerged from the Oct. 10 election campaign in the red.

But the New Democrats racked up the largest deficit of $3.9-million, after spending more than five times what they raised.

The documents also show that the Liberals sailed to a second straight majority the old-fashioned way - by outspending the competition.

At the conclusion of last year's 30-day election campaign, the Liberals had spent just over $8-million, while the Tories had spent $6.9-million.

The Liberals won 71 of the 107 seats in the provincial legislature. The Tories won 26 seats and the New Democrats 10.

Political parties often spend more than they raise during a campaign, but both the Liberals and the Conservatives ended the 2007 election with deficits twice as large as in the 2003 campaign.

The Liberals' deficit climbed to $2.3-million in 2007 from $1-million in 2003; the Tories had a deficit of $1.5-million in 2003.

For the Tories, the latest deficit adds another blow after their bitter defeat in the Oct. 10 election, when party Leader John Tory also failed to win a seat in the legislature.

Many party members remain angry that he did not at least reduce the Liberals to minority status.

He went into the campaign ahead of Premier Dalton McGuinty in personal popularity but emerged badly beaten because of his policy on funding faith-based schools.

Some of Mr. Tory's supporters have suggested he stuck with the controversial policy because he was relying on internal polling numbers compiled by campaign manager John Laschinger's firm, Northstar Research Partners.

Mr. Laschinger's company is no longer doing polling for the party.

But Northstar collected lucrative fees during the campaign. All told, Mr. Laschinger's companies pocketed $251,490, the documents show.

For the Liberals, well over half of their spending was on advertising, including $4.2-million to Allard Johnson Communications Inc., the documents show.

Pollara, the polling firm owned by Don Guy, the Premier's former chief of staff, was paid $297,648 by the Liberals for research, the documents show.

Mr. Guy left the Premier's office in July of 2006 to manage the party's re-election campaign.

The documents also show that the Liberals spent $58,600 for their victory party at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa.

The parties had until yesterday to release the election finance figures. The Liberals released their documents late yesterday, just hours before the deadline.