Ontario PC leadership contestant Caroline Mulroney raised over $461,000 in the first nine days of her campaign, figures released by Elections Ontario on Wednesday show.
Of Mulroney’s 476 donors, 296 gave the legal maximum of $1,222.
Mulroney herself, an exception to donation rules, gave her own campaign $25,000 on the day it launched, Feb. 6. That’s the legal maximum in her case.
The data goes up to Feb. 14.
Mulroney’s donor list is a sort of tour of Toronto’s business elite. People making the maximum contribution included:
- Andrew Barnicke, senior executive at Capital Markets Canada
- Geoff Beattie, a director of the Royal Bank
- Robert Deluce, president and CEO of Porter Airlines
- Conservative senator Nicole Eaton
- David Mirvish, a theatre producer and real estate developer
- Sam Mizrahi, real estate developer
- Anthony Munk, senior managing director of Onex
- Brian Porter, president and CEO of Scotiabank
PC MPP Monte McNaughton, whose name came up as a possible leadership contestant, but who said in January he wouldn’t run, also gave $1,222.
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, Caroline Mulroney’s father, doesn’t appear on the donor list. Donors to party leadership contests in Ontario must be residents, and he lives in Montreal.
In 2015, donations to Patrick Brown‘s successful leadership campaign totalled $1.6 million, and donations to Christine Elliott‘s runner-up campaign totalled $1.2 million. At that time, however, six-figure donations to both campaigns were common, since there were no donation limits for leadership campaigns. In 2016, Ontario tightened political donation limits, including to party leadership candidates.
The PC leadership race has four confirmed candidates: Mulroney, Elliott, Toronto city councillor Doug Ford, and sex education critic Tanya Granic Allen.
Brown, whose resignation started the 2018 leadership race in the first place, was expected to be told on Wednesday whether he would be allowed to run.
Contribution data for other candidates is not yet available.