3 of 5 montreal parties have blown the deadline for election spending report
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left to right: montreal 2025 mayoral candidates gilbert thibodeau, jean-françois kacou, soraya martinez ferrada, luc rabouin and craig sauvé.
photos: montreal gazette files
only two of the five political parties that ran candidates for mayor of montreal last fall submitted an election spending report as of the legal deadline this past monday.
mayor soraya martinez ferrada’s ensemble montréal and futur montréal, led by jean-françois kacou, filed their reports on time, the gazette has learned.
projet montréal, which was in power for the last two terms, was given a 15-day extension by élections québec and has until feb. 17 to submit its report.
craig sauvé’s transition montréal and gilbert thibodeau’s action montréal, which as of thursday afternoon had no extensions, had not submitted their spending reports, the city said.
“it’s a technical detail that we find unfortunate,” thibodeau told the gazette about the delay. action montréal replaced its official representative after the election and the new person hasn’t yet received access to the élections québec web application to file the party’s election spending report, he said. the official representative filed a hard copy of the report, but it must be filed on the élections québec platform, thibodeau said.
“the (new official representative) is waiting for his access code to deposit (the report),” he said, adding that he had spoken with the city of montreal about the situation on thursday morning and that he was anticipating a deadline extension from élections québec.
transition montréal did not respond to phone and email messages by publication time thursday.
ensemble montréal’s report shows it spent $1.036 million on its election campaign from september to november. the party was permitted to spend up to $1.764 million.
futur montréal, which ran council candidates in 13 of montreal’s 19 boroughs, spent $72,342 on its campaign, according to its report. the party was permitted to spend up to $1.137 million.
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the four borough-level political parties that ran candidates in the last montreal election also filed their campaign spending reports on time.
according to their reports, équipe anjou spent $37,130 on its campaign; équipe lasalle team spent $76,363; équipe st-léonard spent $48,961; and parti outremont spent $2,760. each party spent below its permitted limit.
quebec’s act respecting elections and referendums in municipalities requires all parties in municipalities covered by the act to submit an election spending report to the treasurer of the municipality within 90 days of an election.
municipal elections were held across the province on nov. 2.
the law requires the report to be accompanied by invoices and receipts and indicate the source of funds paid into the party’s election coffers.
a party faces a $50 fine for each day it’s late filing its election spending report.
however, quebec’s chief electoral officer may grant a deadline extension “on proof that the failure to file the report or return is due to the absence, death, illness, misconduct or physical disability of the official representative or official agent (of the party), a case of irresistible force or any other reasonable cause,” the law states.
projet montréal requested an extension and the chief electoral officer granted it, said julie st-arnaud-drolet, a spokesperson for élections québec.
“the deadlines for producing a report of several thousand pages of documents that justify each of our invoices are very tight,” eloi mayano-vinet, executive director of projet montréal, said in a written statement to the gazette.
“we used the standard procedure to request a few days’ extension to ensure that our report is impeccable.”
mayano-vinet added that projet montréal, which was founded more than 20 years ago, “has taken the rigour, completeness and compliance of its election reports very seriously.”
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on top of the fine, the leader of a party that’s late with its election spending report and doesn’t have an extension is ineligible to run for office again until the report is submitted.
as well, parties that are late and don’t have an extension may deprive themselves of public funding.
for example, a party is entitled to a reimbursement from the municipality of 70 per cent of the campaign expenses of each candidate who obtained at least 15 per cent of the vote. however, the law says that no reimbursement will be made to a party until its election expense report is filed.
still, élections québec’s st-arnaud-drolet said a party can seek a 50 per cent advance on its reimbursement as early as five days after the election.
projet montréal’s mayoral candidate, luc rabouin, finished second behind martinez ferrada. thibodeau finished third, followed by sauvé and then kacou.
rabouin announced on election night that he was quitting municipal politics following projet montréal’s defeat.
transition montréal and action montréal did not elect any candidates.
st-arnaud-drolet noted that it’s common for election expense reports to be submitted late. she added that the parties that haven’t filed yet will probably submit their reports in the coming days.
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