Becoming a candidate in a Canadian federal election
It's almost election season again here in Canada, and as I was an Official Agent for a candidate, I thought I would share my experiences with any potential candidates and Official Agents. I was an Official Agent about 3 or 4 years ago, so some of my recollections may be hazy.
First, you need to appoint an Official Agent. They will handle all of your finances and other such stuff. You need them to sign and certify certain stuff. They will pretty much be known as "Official Agent for [Your Name]" from then until the election ends and your campaign is closed down. They can forget what their name is for the duration of the campaign.
You will need to get a notary to notarize the form that you and your Official Agent sign that designates them as your Official Agent. A law firm is a good and quick place to find a notary. They may charge you $20 or so to do it. Bring cash (the lawyer waived the fee for us. You might get lucky, or sympathy, too)
Your Official Agent will have to open an account at a bank (any of the Big Five will do) under [Their Name], Official Agent for [Your Name]. All money your receive and spend should go through this account. The account is also supposed to be free, the bank can't charge you any fees for having it (the bank charged me and had to reverse the fees cause they broke the law. Suckers.) The account has to be closed at the end of the election after your campaign's finances and a printed copy of the account activity and proof that it was closed must be submitted to Elections Canada. Any funds unaccounted for are supposed to be left there until they can be returned and audited.
Then, you need to get the necessary paperwork from Elections Canada in the office in your riding. This far from an election there may not be an Elections Canada office in your riding yet.
You will then need to get people in your riding to sign a petition type deal supporting your candidacy (I can't remember for the life of me how many signatures you need. It may be different in a rural or urban riding. I think in my rural riding it was like 50 or 100. Maybe 200,) these people don't have to be on the voters list, but they must be registered in a government database of some sort. Elections Canada has access to all the government databases. It's kinda cool and kinda scary at the same time.
You need to bring the petition with $1000 cash to the Elections Canada office in your riding and the necessary forms. The cash is refunded to you after the election and after all of your final paperwork is filed and EC is satisfied you haven't cheated or overspent on your campaign.
You will need to attend one or two meetings at the EC office with the other candidates/official agents/representatives of candidates. They aren't mandatory, but they are interesting because they explain the voting and scrutineer process. You can choose one scrutineer per ballot box for when they count the votes (the Marxist-Leninist guys never showed up at the meetings I went to. I was kinda disappointed. Also, funny election night story: one of the polling stations mis-attributed all the NDP votes to my candidate. For a few hours he earned the highest percentage of the vote for a candidate in the Libertarian Party of Canada's history.)
You and your official agent will need to keep all of your receipts covering your expenses and income (donations.) There is a limit for the amount of donations you can receive and what you can spend, but it's really high, like $300,000 or something like that. You will have to prove to Elections Canada that you formally and completely liquidated all assets from the campaign. I don't remember where any leftover donations go because our campaign was a tightly run ship and we had no leftovers. I think it might have to go into the party coffers (I have no idea where independents' money goes. Maybe EC holds it in trust for a certain amount of time?)
Then you campaign. I suggest buying signs, make sure the other candidates and media know you are running. You will probably get invited to a debate, make sure you go to that.
Then election night comes along and you can go to the polling stations and talk to your scrutineers (if you have any, you don't have to.) Watch as the incumbent wins again.
After the election you have to fill out a lot of forms in triplicate and have them signed, sealed, stamped (five times,) lost, found, lost again, found again and returned to Elections Canada. In other words, a lot of bureaucratic stuff.
They will then process your forms while sending you letters saying "we lost all of your receipts, we hope you have copies!" and "your Form 21B Alpha was lost, fill out a new one," and "we still haven't received Expense Form 9A Subsection 24, where is it?" It is your Official Agent's job to take care of all of that, but if you are nice, you might help him out a little. You'll be very motivated to make sure they have all your form and other needed material because you lose your thousand bucks if you don't. They will not hesitate to dangle that over your head at every opportunity.
Eventually you will receive a government cheque for $1000. Then you will know you are completely done and you can forget the bureaucratic nightmare for another year.
