New Westminster NDP MLA Judy Darcy spent almost $30,000 more on her reelection campaign for the May 9 provincial election than the riding’s other four candidates combined.
Financial reports, released by Elections B.C. Tuesday, showed Darcy spent $117,793 while the rest of the riding’s candidates expended a total of $88,122 trying to defeat her.
In seeking her second term, Darcy collected more than she spent. Her total income was $122,393. Most of that, $90,051 came from the New Democratic Party. The former union boss also picked up $22,632 in contributions from three trade unions – CUPE B.C., New Westminster-based Health Sciences Association and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1518. Han Wang and Victor Wang of City Point Real Estate Development in Vancouver gave her campaign $9,200.
Darcy won the riding with 52 per cent of the votes. The order of finish also reflected the money spent by the candidates.
Jonina Campbell of the Green Party, who finished second, received a lot of financial help from her own community. More than half, $24,042, of her $48,947 income came from individual contributions and another $2,710, in gross income, came from a fundraising function. The party put up $21,945 toward Campbell’s campaign. But she listed her total expenditures at $53,317.
All but $500 of the $35,436 B.C. Liberal candidate Lorraine Brett, the third-place finisher, had to work with came from party coffers, but she ended up only spending $30,540 of it.
Social Credit candidate James Crosty worked with revenue of $4,265 and spent it all. The party contributed $2,970, he put in $771 himself and the rest, $524, came from Gerda Suess, a long-time party supporter and New Westminster resident.
Libertarian candidate Rex Brocki did not report any income or expenditures on the financial report he submitted to Elections B.C.
It was a similar story in the new riding of Richmond-Queensborough where the winner, Jas Johal of the B.C. Liberals, significantly outspent his opposition. But in his case, he barely beat out his NDP counterpart, Aman Singh, (8,219 to 8,084) at the polls.
Johal, a former television journalist who was one of the Liberals’ star recruits, reported $167,227 in income with only $250 coming from campaign contributions, the rest came out of the coffers of the B.C. Liberal Party. He reported spending $173,853 on the campaign.
Singh reported he had only $20,619 to work with, of which only $10,719 came from the NDP. However, he reported he ended up spending $40,446.
Michael Wolfe of the Green Party reported receiving only $650, of which $550 came out of his own pocket.
