Mayor has now returned 56 campaign donations
November 8, 2005

The additional over-donations uncovered by the auditor's report last week brings to 56 the number of refund cheques issued by Mayor Di Ianni as a result of apparently improper donations to his 2003 election campaign. Five new ones were noted in Ken Froese's report in addition to 51 others that were listed in the mayor's final campaign financial statement filed earlier this year.

The apparently inappropriate donors include six individuals and 47 corporations. Three of the companies received two refund cheques each. Returned donations are not proof that the gifts were illegal. That can only be determined by the courts. Eighteen of the corporate donors are currently facing charges.

The returned cheques total $22,700. However, the donors who received them gave a total of nearly $54,000 to the mayor's campaign. This amount includes both the legal and apparently illegal portions of their donations, since in most cases the donors gave over the maximum amount of $750.

The total donations reported by the mayor's campaign were just over $355,000. Apparently illegal donations that have now been returned made up 6.4% of these donations. Total donations from those who made these apparently illegal donations accounted for 15.2% of the mayor's fundraising.

Ontario law limits the total amount that a candidate can spend on an election, but allows unregulated spending on some categories such as fundraising and accounting. When these categories are deducted, the mayor's campaign spent a little less than $254,000 on election expenses. Using this amount, the above percentages rise to 8.9% and 21.2% respectively.

The auditor's report only provides details of a half dozen of the over-contributions. Ken Froese's report also makes no comment on the curious alteration of donor names and addresses that was made in Di Ianni's final financial statements. In 36 instances, donations that were previously credited to individual donors in earlier sworn campaign statements, were reassigned to corporations.

Fifteen of these changes resulted in over-contributions and subsequent refund cheques. Most of the altered donations continued to be listed with the same address for the corporation as were previously used for the individual, but in nine of the 36, both the donor name and their reported address were altered.

A copy of the March 2005 financial statement filed by the mayor can be viewed at http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/pdfs/DiIanniMar05donations.pdf.