Financial Statements Coming Soon

If your fetish is the financial statements of municipal candidates, then good news everyone, we should be getting the statements from the 2010 campaign before the month is out. Here's the City's Press Release:

GUELPH, ON, March 14, 2011 – Later this month the public will be able to access the financial statements filed by election candidates on the City’ website, guelph.ca. It will be the first time candidates’ statements will be available in one place.

Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act has long required that candidates file financial statements, however this year marks the first time statements will be made available to the public for viewing at no cost via city websites. This new provision is pursuant to section 88(9.1) of the Act.

Financial statements include the amount a candidate generated in income for his or her campaign, and the amount he or she spent.

There were 57 candidates in Guelph’s October 25, 2010 election—4 for mayor, 33 for ward councillor, and 20 for school board trustee. To date, 26 of those candidates have filed financial statements. The remainder should be forthcoming within the next 2 weeks.

“There used to be a grace period before penalties took effect,” says Lois Giles, Guelph’s City Clerk. “The grace period allowed a candidate to apply to the Ontario Court of Justice for an extension to file the document, however that provision for candidates who fail to file by the deadline no longer exists, and the penalties now apply immediately.”

The deadline for election candidates to file financial statements is 2 p.m. on March 25. The penalty, should an elected candidate fail to submit his or her financial statement by the deadline, is the forfeiture of any office to which he or she was elected, the office is deemed to be vacant, and the candidate is ineligible to run in the next municipal election. The penalty for unsuccessful candidates who fail to file by the deadline is ineligibility to be elected or appointed to any office to which the Act applies until after the 2014 election.