tank: block spent far less, still walloped wyant in saskatoon mayoral race
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mayoral candidates (from left) don atchison, cynthia block, cary tarasoff and gordon wyant participate in the 2024 greater saskatoon chamber of commerce mayoral election debate at rogers television studios.
michelle berg
/
saskatoon starphoenix
cynthia block made history beyond becoming saskatoon’s first woman mayor in november. she also became the first mayoral candidate to win the office despite being outspent.
make no mistake, block’s campaign can hardly be considered cash poor as she spent $205,609.35, which is the second most money spent on a saskatoon mayoral campaign — as far as we know.
but she badly trailed former saskatchewan party cabinet minister gord wyant, who spent $274,464.80, just shy of the $277,809.40 limit based on saskatoon’s population.
the only larger spending gap between the top two mayoral contenders came in 2012, when don atchison outspent tom wolf by $75,145. the big difference between those two contests is that wolf gave atchison a run for his copious money, while block soundly defeated wyant by more than 10,000 votes.
since full disclosure of campaign spending and contributions began in 2006, the top-spending mayoral candidate had consistently won, including charlie clark in 2016 and 2020 and atchison in 2012, 2009 and 2006.
clark set the previous record by becoming the first mayoral candidate to officially spend slightly more than $200,000 in 2020, after spending slightly less in 2016.
in november’s election, atchison spent $18,393.97 on his third straight unsuccessful mayoral campaign and finished a distant third with about 15 per cent of the vote.
and cary tarasoff spend $4,449.31 of his money on his second mayoral campaign, which is less than most council candidates spent, and again finished a predictably distant fourth.
despite the record-setting spending by wyant and block, less total money was spent on mayoral campaigns this year ($502,917.43) than in 2020 ($551,112.50), according to the official disclosures in a city council committee report.
and block was joined on council by four candidates who spent less than their highest-spending opponent.
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in ward 1, coun. kathryn macdonald ($11,824.23) spent far less than council veteran darren hill ($17,877.55), who finished third. coun. robert pearce ($8,793.57) was outspent by mike san miguel ($9,112.80), who was trying to claim the ward 3 seat for the third time.
coun. scott ford ($16,593.79) topped an eight-candidate field in vacant ward 8, even though malvina rapko ($17,817.18) spent more, only to finish third. and coun. holly kelleher ($8,199.06) was outpaced by jamie kirkpatrick ($12,828.31), who also placed third.
so more money does not always translate into victory, even as legitimate concerns have emerged about spending limits that reduce the number of people who can seriously compete. but sometimes the most money delivers.
first-time candidate coun. senos timon spent the most of any council hopeful ever, at least according to the official records, with expenses of $27,765.81, just under the limit.
that’s more than the previous record of nearly $23,000 in a 2020 bid by jim rhode to unseat veteran mairin loewen. rhode finished a distant second.
timon’s total expenses in becoming the first black man and first person of colour to get elected to saskatoon city council was just slightly less than the combined spending by his five competitors for the seat.
aside from timon, only veteran coun. randy donauer topped $20,000 in spending with $21,991.59, even though donauer topped fundraising with $27,549.76, compared to $26,998 for timon. another veteran, coun. bev dubois, raised $20,053.20 and spent $11,259.83 on her campaign, even though she was acclaimed.
donauer spent three times the combined total of his four opponents.
coun. senos timon listens in council chamber during the first meeting with a new mayor and council members. photo taken in saskatoon on wednesday, nov. 27, 2024.
michelle berg
/
saskatoon starphoenix
delving into donations
so where did all this campaign money come from during a cost-of-living crisis?
notably, the biggest single donor for both block and wyant turned out to be … block and wyant, respectively. block donated $16,025 to her own campaign (although she refunded $3,005.91 to herself), while wyant boosted his bid by $40,000.
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block’s next highest contribution came from the union that represents transit employees, which gave $10,000, followed by the canadian labour congress with $7,000. in all, block received $25,000 from organized labour, which is less than the $35,500 clark’s campaign got from labour in 2020.
saskatoon entrepreneur and philanthropist james yuel donated $6,000 to block. but that did not represent the biggest contribution to a mayoral bid from the yuel family (read on).
block’s next two highest donations came from business: $5,000 from developer john nasser and $5,000 from enviroway detergent manufacturing inc., a saskatoon company located near the airport.
enviroway donated that exact amount to the mayoral campaign of former saskatchewan party minister rob norris in 2020 after donating the same to clark’s campaign in 2016.
block also got $4,000 from bestselling author yann martel, who donated $7,000 to clark in 2020 and $10,000 in 2016.
none of the rest of block’s donors gave more than $4,000, with most giving less than $1,000. candidates need only reveal donors who gave $100 or more. in total, block raised $212,615.26, which is the second highest total ever after wyant, who raised $291,953.
wyant’s largest contribution of $25,000 came from jubilee ford, part of the wyant group for which his brother, vaughn, serves as president and ceo. vaughn wyant also assisted his brother’s campaign with fundraising.
wyant got $20,000 donations each from sell cell international and the concorde group.
and greg yuel, who runs the company started by his father, james yuel, now called pic investment group inc., donated a whopping $14,000. jim yuel also gave $4,000 to wyant’s bid.
wyant also received $10,000 each from chelsea paul, waste connections of canada and arbutus meadows partnership, a vancouver-based developer that has been embroiled in disputes with city council.
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eight different donors gave $5,000 to wyant’s campaign, including victory majors investments, the nasser family‘s business. controversial calgary entrepreneur w. brett wilson also gave wyant $5,000 — yes, the lax donations rules allow for contributions from outside saskatchewan.
and jack brodsky, the former co-owner of the saskatoon blades who helped manage atchison’s 2016 campaign, also gave $5,000 to wyant.
on the council side, the largest donations also came from candidates themselves, led by ford, who cites $12,993.79 in personal contributions to his campaign and kevin boychuk, who helped fund his second straight ward 1 campaign with $10,826.45.
boychuk, a 2021 people’s party of canada candidate, lost by 52 votes to macdonald after losing by 56 votes to hill in 2020.
and pearce’s disclosure cited an extraordinary $6,000 donation from “confed shopping center,” presumably the confederation mall. pearce ran for ward 3 on a campaign to close a controversial provincial homeless shelter located near the mall.
as for newcomer timon, he cites no personal contributions in his campaign disclosure form. timon received $2,800 from organized labour, which is an unusually high amount for a first-time council candidate.
timon also received a number of donations from people with ndp connections.
these include rachel loewen walker, the party’s candidate for saskatoon west in the federal election; former provincial party leader ryan meili; former federal candidate claire card; former ndp cabinet minister david forbes; 2022 provincial party leadership candidate kaitlyn harvey; saskatoon mla kim breckner; and former finance minister eric cline.
timon also got $100 from ashlee hicks, who beat out timon for the ndp nomination for saskatoon riversdale in 2020.
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phil tank is the digital opinion editor at the saskatoon starphoenix.
this article has been updated to reflect that cynthia block’s campaign refunded $3,005.91 of the money she donated to her own campaign.
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