Councillors insist they can’t be influenced by campaign donations, but that didn’t stop numerous contributors from pouring large amounts of money into last fall’s municipal elections. That included as many as five donors who may have exceeded the legal limit of $5000, but it is unclear whether they or the candidates who benefitted from their largesse will face any penalties.
Attached to each of Viv Saunders’ challenges to the financial statements of seven councillors was an appendix that points to over-the-limit campaign gifts from three corporations and two unions who she calculates gave between $5250 and $6250 each. She arrived at the numbers by adding up the donations reported by all candidates including those who were defeated.
For the largest contributor – Spallaci & Sons – $750 donations were reported by each of nine candidates. These include elected councillors Terry Whitehead, Jason Farr, Tom Jackson, Chad Collins and Sam Merulla and defeated Ward 3 candidate Ralph Agostino. Mayor Fred Eisenberger received a $250 donation while his two main contenders. Brad Clark and Brian McHattie, got $750 each. That adds up to $6250.
A potentially related company – Spallaci Construction – disbursed another $5250, giving $750 each to councillors Whitehead, Farr, Collins and Merulla, as well as to defeated candidates Agostino, Clark and McHattie. Eisenberger also received a $500 cheque from Spallaci Group. The address on the donations from all three companies is 85 Lancing Drive Unit Q.
For each corporate gift, candidates are required to report the president of the company. Frank Spallaci’s name is listed for most of the Spallaci & Sons donations, and about half those from Spallaci Construction. Rudi Spallaci is given on some of the Spallaci & Sons gifts, and Adriano Spallaci’s name appears on some of the Spallaci Construction. Eisenberger lists Rudi on his Spallaci Group donation.
Saunders argued the Municipal Elections Act makes the recipients at least partly responsible for accepting gifts from over-donors, pointing to section 69 which orders that “a candidate shall ensure that a contribution of money made or received in contravention of this Act is returned to the contributor.” The accused councillors replied that they have no way of knowing how much their donors gave to someone else.
The Municipal Elections Act also says “associated companies” are considered a single contributor subject to the $5000 maximum donations to candidates for a single council, but association is determined “under section 256 of the Income Tax Act” of Canada and that information is not publicly accessible. That leaves citizens in a difficult to impossible situation when trying to determine if the law has been broken.
That problem is underlined by at least $12,000 in donations that appear to be connected to Sergio Manchia. In addition to $5000 from Urban Core, Manchia’s name appears on cheques from Ancaster Self Storage and Dundas Self Storage that respectively donated $4250 and $2750. The address given for all three companies is the same – 1147 Garner Road West in Ancaster. Ten of the 16 members of council, including the mayor, got one or more donations from these three companies.
In addition, Lloyd Ferguson reported returning a cheque to DCR Holdings because it came from Manchia. This company is redeveloping the former Otis Elevator on Victoria North along with Urban Core. In addition to the rejected gift to Ferguson, DCR donated $500 each to the campaigns of Terry Whitehead, Tom Jackson, Sam Merulla and Maria Pearson.
Other contributors who Saunders says exceeded the $5000 limit were the Carpenter’s union Political Action Committee at $5950, LIUNA (Labourers International Union of North America) Local 837 at $5500, and Urban Core Developments at $5500. It appears that two of the Urban Core gifts were returned and one of the LIUNA ones went to a school board candidate. That would bring their net donations to council candidates down to the legal limit but it could be argued that one or both technically broke the rules.
Donations over $4000 were provided by Carstar, Vrancor and Hamilton Cab.