Two re-elected Markham councillors spent vastly different amounts to win in 2018

Yorkregion.com
May 3, 2019
Tim Kelly

Regional councillors Jim Jones and Jack Heath were both re-elected for the fourth time to Markham City council last October but the amount they spent to get there was vastly different.

While Heath received 31,598 votes to finish runner-up to deputy mayor Don Hamilton, Jones was fourth with 25,037 votes. Joe Li, also re-elected, came third.

On the other hand Jones spent an eye-popping $177,084.24, more than any other candidate who ran in Markham in 2018. Heath spent a relatively paltry $28,373.38, far less than either Hamilton ($152,413.43) or Li ($146,774.25). Both candidates took donations from developers, in Jones’s case from dozens, in Heath’s case from several.

While the contributor list for Jones, which includes all those who gave the candidate $100 or more up to an allowable limit of $1,200 stretches to five pages and includes 225 names, Heath has just one sheet of contributors with 38 names on it.

Jones has 85 contributors who gave him the maximum allowable $1,200 donation adding up to $102,000 of his $177,084,24 total. For Heath, the number of maximum donors is just 12 for a total of $14,400 of $28,373,38.

So why did Jones feel compelled to spend so much and Heath spend so little?

From Heath’s point of view, it didn’t matter where he finished in the race he said, as long as he got elected.

“I have said, and people tend to not take this by candidates seriously, but I spoke the truth: I was running for first, second, third or fourth. Being deputy mayor or not being deputy mayor had limited interest for me because of what I was trying to accomplish in this term of office,” he said.

He added that he didn’t hold any fundraisers and didn’t send out brochures either, which can get expensive.

“I spent more last time I ran, probably twice as much. But the last two campaigns I’ve just put up signs and (bought) ads in your paper,” Heath said.

“That’s about it.”

Jones, for his part, admits this was the most ambitious and easily the most expensive campaign he’s run for regional council.

But he said there was a good reason for that.

“I was the only one that put out a true campaign, true to what I was going to do, and I’ve been working on it ever since,” the veteran politician said.

He said the last campaign he spent about $40,000 less, “about $136K, and I was over a 100-something eight years ago, but this time I did things I never normally do which was, I never pay for anybody, which I did, which maybe in retrospect wasn’t a good idea, because then they wanted to do these things and what can you say, and then my brochure; maybe I had more words in my brochure than everybody else totally,” Jones said.

He also rented an office for three months and staffed it with an employee as well, something he said he also has never done in a municipal campaign in the past.

“A lot of this stuff, I created myself: the brochure, it costs money to print it; the social media, YouTube, I didn’t know what I was doing, that’s why I had to pay these people, I couldn’t ask them to do it for nothing, and I had an office, and I had a person there every day; did I pay her too much, I don’t know. I paid three months for that person,” Jones admitted.

“I think I spent on staff $25,000 to $30,000 which I never have in the past.”

Retired York University politics professor Robert MacDermid, who specializes in municipal politics, said he wishes the limits (municipal politicians can raise) were smaller “because it permits candidates to raise less money and therefore incur fewer obligations to funders. I don't know offhand what percentage of spending goes on signs but I doubt people need to see more of those,” MacDermid said.

The professor’s main concern with the amount of money raised surrounds donations from developers who often appear before council lobbying to have their projects passed.

“In past elections, most of Jones’s money came from corporations and much of that from developers. Under the new rules, he can't rely on funding from corporations but can and has relied heavily on individual developers and their families.

“(Heath)’s popularity is such that he has to raise very little money. In my view, taking money from developers creates the perception of being friendly with and favourable to the industry.”