Tracking Alberta political party fundraising from 2004 to 2014

Following last week’s release of Alberta’s political party financial disclosure reports for 2014, I thought it would be interesting to look at the history of political donations in our province over the past ten years. Annual and quarterly financial disclosure reports are available for public consumption in difficult to search pdf files on the Elections Alberta website.

[See the charts below for the ten year fundraising trend for Alberta’s four main political parties]

Alberta’s two main conservative parties – the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose Party – remained the dominant forces in political fundraising in 2014. The PC Party’s impressive $3.2 million sets a record for the party, while the Wildrose Party’s $2.1 million is only slightly less than the party fundraised in the year before the 2012 election.

The New Democrats collected an impressive $776,674 in donations in 2014, a record high for that party. The Liberals raised $361,112, slightly less than their 2013 fundraising totals, and the Alberta Party raised $108,837 in donations, a record for that party.

The PC Party continued to rely heavily traditional corporate donors and individual donations in amounts larger than $250, while the Wildrose Party and NDP continued to collect significant amounts of funds in amounts smaller than $250 (nearly half of the Wildrose donations were in amounts smaller than $250).

Here is a look at the ten year fundraising trend for Alberta’s four main political parties:

(Note: These charts take into account fundraising by the central parties, not constituency associations. Information about constituency association financial returns is available separately in individual pdf documents on the Elections Alberta website).