The Liberal Party in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo wanted to make sure they were on your Facebook timeline.
The campaign for Liberal candidate Jesse McCormick, who finished third, spent $8,196 on Facebook ads from Aug. 22 to Sept. 20 – the most out of all seven candidates in the riding, according to the social media website’s ad tracker that discloses election spending.
The tracker doesn’t match the dates of the election, which began on Aug. 15 when Parliament was dissolved. As a result, it doesn’t include one week of the campaign.
What it does show, however, is how much each candidate’s campaign invested in its Facebook presence.
The Conservative’s Frank Caputo, who won the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding by more than 9,000 votes, according to preliminary results, paid $3,041 in Facebook ads, less than half of McCormick’s spending. The NDP’s Bill Sundhu, who came in second, paid $1,619. Iain Currie, the candidate for the Green Party, spent just $782.
No contributions were listed for People’s Party of Canada candidate Corally Delwo or for independents Wayne Allan and Bob O’Brien, although they did have Facebook pages promoting their campaigns.
Those numbers reflect how federal parties paid Facebook.
During the same 30-day period, the Liberal Party spent $2.2 million in ads, followed by the Conservatives ($2 million) and NDP ($1.6 million).
The Bloc Quebecois followed with $139,317, while the People’s Party spent just $60,444. The Green Party, meanwhile, paid only $6,028 in ads.
Federal parties also paid extra to promote their leader’s Facebook pages.
The Liberals spent $829,322 to prop up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while the NDP paid $312,509 to promote Jagmeet Singh. Erin O’Toole’s campaign, meanwhile, spent $228,854.
Just over half of the Green Party’s Facebook budget was spent on leader Annamie Paul ($3,733), while no individual page was listed for People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier.
Facebook also discloses third-party election ad spending.
Working Ontario Women, which campaigned against O’Toole, spent the most of any third party with $255,767. They were followed by Canada Proud, a pro-Conservative page that spent $169,978 attacking Trudeau. The United Steelworks, meanwhile, spent $77,846 to promote Singh.
The amounts are reported to the public by Facebook. They do not include other advertising costs through media such as newspapers, radio and signage. These numbers may not include money spent by riding associations and the federal parties. Complete financial from the campaigns won’t be available for several months, through Elections Canada. It also does not include ads on Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) or other social media platforms.
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