Liberal supporters start election year with strong Q1 fundraising results

April 30, 2019

Ottawa, ON – The Liberal Party of Canada has started this election year with another quarter of strong grassroots fundraising results, with more than 33,290 Canadians (up from 28,960 in Q1 of 2018) contributing $3,857,163 to support Justin Trudeau and the Liberal team’s positive plan to strengthen the middle class and grow our economy.

A growing base of grassroots donors in Q1 of 2019 also builds on the success of the preceding two quarters, with the Liberal Party having recently achieved its best-ever Q3 and Q4 fundraising results outside of an election campaign.

“Liberal campaigns across Canada have started 2019 strong, with new by-election victories, growth in grassroots fundraising, and the momentum of more than 1.3 million new conversations with Canadians and 1,000 volunteer engagement events over the past year,” said Suzanne Cowan, President of the Liberal Party of Canada. “While Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are focused on the same politics of secrecy and division that we all remember from Stephen Harper, Canadians are supporting Justin Trudeau’s positive progress to strengthen the middle class, grow the economy, and protect a clean environment for our families.”

The median donation to the Liberal Party in Q4 was just $10 at a time, and 96 percent of all donations were under $200 – an example of the party’s strong and growing success with grassroots fundraising. Q1 of 2019 also continued to see more active monthly grassroots donors to the Liberal Party of Canada than at any other time in the party’s history, and the month of March saw a 167% increase in online fundraising compared to the same month last year.

Recent filings with Elections Canada have also highlighted that Liberal supporters are getting far more value for their donations than Conservatives. The 2017 annual returns show that the Conservative Party spent $7,189,100 on fundraising expenses throughout the year while the Liberal Party spent just $2,702,363.

Throughout this mandate, local Liberal riding associations have also continued to outraise their Conservative counterparts by as much as 3-to-1.