While many of the notable candidates for Calgary’s next municipal election say they didn’t fundraise in 2024 at all, campaign disclosure data from last year shows that a select few have put together appreciable war chests.
A significant difference between this round of municipal elections and 2021 is that corporate and union donations have returned to civic elections in Alberta, with the passage of the UCP’s Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 20) last year, which reversed the ban on non-individual donations in municipal elections the NDP imposed in 2018.
Bill 20 also introduced municipal parties to Calgary and Edmonton.
Incumbent mayor Jyoti Gondek led the fundraising pack last year, having disclosed $51,000 in campaign contributions, all from individuals.. Gondek’s donations largely came from big cheques: nine individuals all donated the $5,000 maximum. The Gondek campaign reported having spent almost none of this last year.
Some of Gondek’s top donors include philanthropist Mike Shaikh, Dave Urner, president of Penny Lane Entertainment Group, which runs Cowboys Casino, his wife Sarah Urner, Penny Lane VP Scarlett Lee, former Calgary Health Foundation board chair Sandy Edmonstone and real estate executive Asheet Ruparell.
Jyoti Gondek, the vaguely-left-of-centre mayor facing several right-wing challengers in Calgary, led in 2024 fundraising. Image from Wikicommons / Creative Commons
Close on Gondek’s heels is council candidate John Pantazopoulos, who disclosed receiving $49,617. The C-suite energy and finance executive is running as an independent in Ward 6.
Pantazopoulos’ contributions were a mix of small and large donations, many from Pantazopoulos and his family, as well as one $5,000 maximum donation from a corporation—XJ Professional Corporation, which is operated by Xiaodi Jin, who also donated the $5,000 maximum to Pantazopoulos as an individual.
The most fundraising by a candidate attached to a party was achieved by Calgary Party mayoral candidate, Brian Thiessen, who raised $29,344 in 2024. By the end of the year, he had spent just $1,000 on a website.
Many of Thiessen’s donations were small, but two individuals donated the $5,000 maximum—Hannes Kovac, the CEO of real estate company OPUS, and Trina Rusiecki, a home maker who used to work in finance.
Jeff Davison wasn’t far behind Thiessen with $28,425 in disclosed contributions. Three individuals donated the maximum to Davison, as did one corporation, Delta Marketing. Delta’s owner, Sean Libin, is a member of the wealthy and influential Libin family in Calgary.
Unlike the other heavy hitters, Davison didn’t keep this powder dry. The Davison campaign reported spending $24,915 in 2024, most of which—about $15,000—went to services from a digital marketing agency.
Davison’s top individual donors include energy executive Curtis Chandler, insurance broker Raymond Kan, and oil and gas-turned-AI executive Jim Artindale. Former UCP president Cynthia Moore also contributed $1000 to Davison.
Rob Ward with the Communities First YYC party disclosed $14,995, and in 2024 spent about half of it, with half of that spend going towards a mobile app for the campaign. Ward’s donations range from $100 to $2,500, and no one donated the maximum.
A notable donation to the Ward campaign was $2,274 from Guy Buchanan, an outspoken advocate for restrictive covenants, which some Calgary neighbourhoods are exploring as a means of blocking city-wide rezoning “to take back their communities.”
Inem Teja, who is running for the Calgary Party against Pantazopoulos in Ward 6, disclosed $12,789 in 2024 donations. Most of these contributions were from small donors. Two corporations, Nafru Consulting and KT Consulting, each gave Teja the $5,000 maximum.
DJ Kelly, the Calgary party candidate in Ward 4, reported $10,360 in contributions in 2024, almost all of which came from two donors donating the maximum—his wife, Christine Johns, and his father, Tony Kelly.
Joanne Birce, in Ward 6, reported $6,600 from a number of small-to-medium donors.
Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean, who is running with Communities First YYC, disclosed only one $5,000 in donation in 2024 and a few hundred dollars carried over from an older campaign account. That maximum-size donation was from a numbered corporation, 1144365 Alberta Limited, which a corporate registry search identifies as owned by Graham Anderson.
Marina Ortman running in Ward 9 also reported a single $5,000 donation, but from a simpler source—herself.
The only school board trustee to file a disclosure in 2024 was Maria Teresa Vecchio-Romano, running for the Calgary Catholic School Division. Vecchio-Romano reported $3,089.
A Better Calgary Party’s Tony Dinh reported $2,625 in 2024 donations. Like Ortman, Dinh put this money up himself. Nearly all of it was spent on services from a firm named GWC Consulting.
David Cree, running in Ward 8, reported $1,582 in donations last year, and Heather McRae in Ward 7 reported $1,398. Elliot Weinstein in Ward 13 reported $1,100, of which $100 was from himself and $1,000 from the numbered corporation 2070741 Alberta Incorporated, which he owns.
Communities First mayoral candidate Sonya Sharp disclosed receiving $1,000 from one donor—Marc Henry, who owns polling firm ThinkHQ. (Henry also donated $1,000 to Rob Ward.) Harrison Clark, running in Ward 9, reported $640.
Terry Wong, John Mar, Jean Louis Benjamin, Andre Chabot and Alex Williams all filed disclosures confirming they raised $0 in 2024. Candidates who raised less than $1,000 in 2024 were not required to make a disclosure.