Analysis of Contributions by Amounts to Four Main Ontario Political Parties in 2021 and 2022

Bill 254 doubled the amount that an individual is allowed to donate each year to each Ontario political party from $1,650 to $3,300, with the amount increasing each year automatically buy $25 (so the limit in 2022 was $3,325, and the limit in 2023 was $3,350, etc.) under subsection 18(1) of Ontario’s Election Finances Act (EFA). [...] As the figures in Chart 2 show, in each party the donors who donated the legal maximum amount annually from 2016 to 2020 were responsible for three to five times the percentage of total donations compared to the percentage of total donors that they represented. [...] PC Party supported much less by low-level donors than other parties As the figures in Chart 3 below show, the PC Party received an average of just under 12 percent of its donations from people donating less than $250 in 2021 and 2022, a much lower percentage than the Greens at just over 36%, the Liberals at just over 23 percent, and the NDP at 21 percent. [...] Chart 3: Number and Percentage of Donors Donating Less Than $250 to the Four Main Ontario Political Parties, and Total Donations They Provided, and Averages, During 2021 and 2022 PC Liberal NDP Green Amount $1,146,465 $487,444 (out $1,077,234 $513,942 (out donated by (out of of $2,352,586 (out of of $1,479,701 donors of less $9,770,286 million total $3,363,967 million total than $250 million total. [...] From 2005 until April 2021, the EFA required parties (and riding associations, nomination contestants, election candidate and party leadership contestants) to record and disclose donations and the identity of donors who donated more than $100 either in a single donation or through multiple donations and, as a result, the total number of donors to each party could be calculated, along with the tota.