The Constituency Association

Constituency associations, like candidates and political parties, must register with the Chief Electoral Officer.

Your association must appoint a CFO and an auditor. It must also keep detailed records of income and expenditures. Therefore, it is important that your CFO has some knowledge and experience in accounting or bookkeeping.

Registration particulars, forms and guidelines for your CFO are available from the Election Finances Division of the Chief Electoral Officer. Most of the rules dealing with the CFO and fund-raiser also apply to the constituency association, so we recommend a careful reading of those sections.

Reporting

Your financial statement for each year must be filed with the Chief Electoral Officer by May 31st of the following year. It will include statements of contributions, all other income received and expenses for the year. Also, you must file the name and address of each person, corporation or trade union who contributed a total in excess of $100 to your association in that year. This is form AR-1.

During an election campaign period, you are required to keep separate records and file an additional statement within six months of polling day. This is due whether or not your candidate wins the election, and should include contributions and other income received and expenditures made for the campaign. Thus it is important to keep election activities separate from your normal operations. The campaign statement is form CR-3.

Both the campaign period and annual statements will have to be audited before you file them with the Chief Electoral Officer. Once filed, the financial statements of every constituency association are available for examination by any person upon request at our office.

Fund-Raising Rules

Your association can raise money during each calendar year, whether or not there is an election.

Your association cannot accept more than $1,240 from any one person, corporation that is not a registered charity or trade union during any year, whether or not there is an election. But when there is an election, even an individual contributor who has donated the full $1,240 to your association is free to donate up to $1,240 to the candidate's organization. Of course, anyone may also make contributions to a political party.

You will find a table giving the details of the contribution limits, and more complete information about who may contribute in Section 4 on page 14.

During a campaign period, funds can be transferred from your association to the candidate's campaign organization. The CFO of the constituency association must record the individual sources of the money for their report to the Chief Electoral Officer, but the candidate has only to record that the transfer came from the constituency association.

Spending Limits

The total combined amount each candidate and the constituency association can spend during a campaign is limited by the Act to an amount determined by the number of electors entitled to vote in the constituency.

Remember that any money spent, any inventory stock transferred by your association, any fees or expenses for services and any contribution of goods and services for the candidate's use during an election, count towards the total permitted amount. All campaign expenditures made by the constituency association must be authorized in writing by the candidate's CFO. Thus, there will have to be co-ordination between the association and the candidate prior to and throughout the campaign period. See Section 5 on page 20 for more information about spending limits.

Fund-Raising Activities

If a collection is taken at a meeting, your CFO is required to record the total amount collected. Donations of $10 or less can be accepted as anonymous donations, but anything over $10 is a contribution and must be recorded together with its source. Any other anonymous contributions must be remitted to the Chief Electoral Officer.

When you hold a dinner, dance or social event for the purpose of raising funds and you sell tickets for admission, a portion of the "per person" charge will, in certain instances, be deemed to be a contribution to the constituency association or candidate by whom or on whose behalf the activity is held, see Section 4 on page 14.

Also, if you have an auction or similar event where goods are sold, any amount paid by the purchaser that is over the going market price for that item will be considered a contribution.

Annual membership fees for the party and/or constituency association that come to a combined total of $25 or less may be considered not to be contributions, provided that you maintain a membership list that shows the fees paid by each member.  You have the option of considering membership fees as a contribution, in which case each payment received should be acknowledged by a tax credit receipt.

Change of Officers

Whenever there is any change in the information you filed with the Chief Electoral Officer at the time of registration, you must notify the Chief Electoral Officer in writing within thirty days.

In addition, the Act requires that if your association's CFO ceases to hold office for whatever reason, you must forthwith appoint another CFO. Similarly, if the auditor's position is vacated you must appoint another auditor forthwith. It is the responsibility of your association to inform the Chief Electoral Officer immediately of changes in either of these two positions.

Loans

The association may borrow money from any financial institution in Ontario, or from your party or another constituency association registered with the Chief Electoral Officer.

Loans may not be accepted from any person, corporation, trade union or other organization, including a federal party.

Your CFO must record the terms of the loan and include it in the report to the Chief Electoral Officer at the time the audited financial statement is filed.