Montreal Political Parties Face Election Spending Report Deadline Issues
Only two of the five political parties that fielded mayoral candidates in Montreal's fall municipal election managed to submit their election spending reports by the legal deadline this past Monday, according to information obtained by The Gazette.
Parties Meeting and Missing the Deadline
Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada's Ensemble Montréal and Jean-François Kacou's Futur Montréal successfully filed their financial disclosures on time. However, three other parties encountered difficulties with the submission process.
Projet Montréal, which held power for the previous two municipal terms, received a 15-day extension from Élections Québec and now has until February 17 to submit its comprehensive report. Meanwhile, Craig Sauvé's Transition Montréal and Gilbert Thibodeau's Action Montréal had not submitted their spending reports as of Thursday afternoon, according to city officials.
Reasons for Delays and Technical Challenges
Gilbert Thibodeau described the situation as "a technical detail that we find unfortunate" when speaking with The Gazette. Action Montréal replaced its official representative following the election, and the new appointee has not yet received access to the Élections Québec web application necessary for filing the party's election spending report.
"The new official representative is waiting for his access code to deposit the report," Thibodeau explained, noting that he had discussed the situation with City of Montreal officials on Thursday morning and anticipated receiving a deadline extension from Élections Québec. The party had submitted a hard copy of the report, but electronic submission through the official platform remains mandatory.
Transition Montréal did not respond to phone and email messages by publication time on Thursday, leaving their reasons for the delay unclear.
Financial Details of Submitted Reports
The submitted reports reveal significant differences in campaign spending among the parties. Ensemble Montréal's disclosure shows the party spent $1.036 million on its election campaign from September to November, well below its permitted limit of $1.764 million.
Futur Montréal, which ran council candidates in 13 of Montreal's 19 boroughs, reported spending $72,342 on its campaign, substantially less than its allowed maximum of $1.137 million.
Additional Borough-Level Reporting
Four borough-level political parties that participated in the Montreal election submitted their campaign spending reports punctually. According to their filings, Équipe Anjou spent $37,130, Équipe LaSalle Team spent $76,363, Équipe St-Léonard spent $48,961, and Parti Outremont spent $2,760 on their respective campaigns. All four parties remained below their permitted spending limits.
Legal Requirements and Consequences
Quebec's Act Respecting Elections and Referendums in Municipalities mandates that all parties in covered municipalities submit election spending reports to municipal treasurers within 90 days of an election. Provincial municipal elections took place on November 2, making the recent deadline particularly significant.
The law requires these reports to include supporting documentation such as invoices and receipts while clearly indicating the sources of funds deposited into party election coffers. Parties face substantial consequences for late submissions, including a $50 daily fine for each day of delay.
Julie St-Arnaud-Drolet, spokesperson for Élections Québec, explained that the chief electoral officer may grant deadline extensions under specific circumstances, including "the absence, death, illness, misconduct or physical disability of the official representative or official agent, a case of irresistible force or any other reasonable cause."
Extension Justification and Additional Penalties
Projet Montréal successfully requested an extension, with executive director Eloi Mayano-Vinet stating in a written response that "the deadlines for producing a report of several thousand pages of documents that justify each of our invoices are very tight."
"We used the standard procedure to request a few days' extension to ensure that our report is impeccable," Mayano-Vinet added, emphasizing that Projet Montréal "has taken the rigour, completeness and compliance of its election reports very seriously" throughout its more than twenty-year history.
Beyond financial penalties, parties that miss the deadline without an extension face additional consequences. Their leaders become ineligible to run for office again until the report is submitted, and they may forfeit access to public funding. Municipalities typically reimburse 70 percent of campaign expenses for candidates who obtained at least 15 percent of the vote, but such reimbursements cannot proceed until election expense reports are properly filed.
St-Arnaud-Drolet noted that late submissions of election expense reports occur frequently and suggested that the remaining parties would likely submit their documents in the coming days. She also mentioned that parties can request a 50 percent advance on their reimbursement as early as five days after the election.
Election Results Context
In the November municipal election, Projet Montréal's mayoral candidate Luc Rabouin finished second behind winner Soraya Martinez Ferrada. Gilbert Thibodeau placed third, followed by Craig Sauvé and Jean-François Kacou. Rabouin announced his departure from municipal politics on election night following his party's defeat, while Transition Montréal and Action Montréal failed to elect any candidates to municipal positions.
