A deeper dive into Calgary’s Third Party Advertiser (TPA) disclosures from the 2021 Calgary municipal election shows a distinct divide between corporate and union contributions – and all the rest.
That’s an aspect that was a virtual certainty when donations to municipal candidates from those entities were first banned back in 2015, according to a Calgary political scientist.
At the time, then-NDP Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said those rules would put “power back in the hands of Alberta citizens rather than those with the deepest pockets…”
Initially, TPA disclosure data was provided to LiveWire Calgary after a Freedom of Information and Privacy (FOIP) request was made in 2022. Much of the donor information was redacted from that disclosure. Other Calgary media received similar redactions on their requests.
Recently, after an appeal was filed by the CBC 18 months ago, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner in Alberta ruled that the City of Calgary improperly withheld much of the donor information. As a result, the LWC FOIP request was reprocessed and it returned the unredacted results (190 pages).
The data shows that the biggest volume contributors were both unions and corporations.
