[Vulcan]

The real reason Harper is having a long campaign is because it will benefit the Tories.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper could call an election as early as this Sunday. How much money each party has in their coffers is difficult to assess. But according to an analysis by The Canadian Press of the parties' financial returns to Elections Canada, the Conservatives, at a national level, had raised $20.1 million by the end of last year. The Liberals followed with $15 million and the NDP with $9.5 million.

But more crucially, the Tories electoral district associations ended the year with net assets of more than $19 million –more than the riding associations of the Liberals, New Democrats, Greens and Bloc combined, The Canadian Press found. Liberal riding associations reported a total of about $8 million in net assets, NDP associations more than $4.4 million, the Greens at almost $1.2 million and the Bloc at about $410,000.


Pre-campaign, there are no limits to what a party can spend — spending rules only kick in once the writ is dropped and the campaign has officially begun. In a typical 37-day election period, each party can spend a maximum of $25 million. For each additional day the limit is increased by 1/37th, or an extra $675,000, meaning an 11-week campaign would allow parties to spend more than $50 million.

Throwing a curve to the 35-day campaign strategy

And a longer campaign could benefit the Tories in a number of ways. Most of the parties have operated under a 35-day campaign strategy, calculating how much money was needed to purchase advertising and media spots while ensuring enough money was in reserve to blanket the airwaves during the last pash at the end of the campaign.

"Then boom, all of a sudden, now you find out you've got to make that same money last twice as long," Wieder said. "The Tories had this plan already and had already anticipated it which gives them a huge advantage."

Not only do the Tories have the advantage of money on hand, they are also better at raising money during the campaign.

"The Conservatives are better at grassroots fundraising than the other parties," said political scientist Tom Flanagan, former Conservative campaign manager. "And the best time to raise money is an election campaign because that's when people are most interested in it. So this gives you a longer period to do your fundraising with your grassroots."

Here's the kicker, it's actually going to cost taxpayers more for this long campaign since the parties will be spending more.

During a campaign, parties can also take advantage of the campaign rebate, meaning taxpayers subsidize 50 per cent of what the parties spend on a national campaign.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07...n_7901736.html