Elections BC has released the candidate financial disclosure statements for Castlegar's October city council by-election.
The statements detail how the candidates spent their money and who it came from. The candidate with the highest campaign expenditures was Arry Dhillon with $5,751. Cherryl MacLeod reported income of $7,131, but when adjusted by the amount that she was able to repay her own contributions with surplus funds left over after the election her actual spending was $4,376. The other two candidates spent significantly less, Janna Sylvest reported $787 and Tyler Maddocks $450.
The order of who spent the most on their campaigns reflects the order of who received the most votes. Dhillon won the election followed by MacLeod, Sylvest and Maddocks.
Dhillon's largest contributor was Sukh Dhaliwal, MP for Surrey-Newton who gave $2,000 towards the campaign. Dhaliwal is a friend of Dhillon's and Dhillon worked as a volunteer field coordinator for Dhaliwal's federal election campaign. Dhillon's next two largest donors were his father who gave $1,120 and Castlegar business Pinnacle PAC with $500. Dhillon contributed $1,066 to his own campaign.
MacLeod reported seven different donations from labor organizations totalling $2650. Her highest individual donations were $750 from the Canadian Union of Public Employees based in Burnaby and $750 from the Canadian Union of Public Employees based in Ottawa. MacLeod also received $500 from the West Kootenay Labour Council where she serves as a trustee. MacLeod contributed $2,948 to her own campaign, but was able to reimburse herself for all but $193.
Janna Sylvest only reported one contribution that did not come from herself, $162 from Charles Peake.
Tyler Maddocks reported no contributions from other people.
Edited Feb. 2, 2017 to correct spelling of Pinnacle.
Edited Feb. 9, 2017 to correct amount donated to MacLeod from CUPE.