Elections Canada’s public register of candidate campaign returns shows no financial information whatsoever for 204 of the 214 people who ran in the Battle River-Crowfoot by-election, almost nine months after the legal deadline for filing those returns.
A record-by-record review of the agency’s Candidate’s Electoral Campaign Return database, conducted Saturday, found that only 10 of the 214 candidates on the Aug. 18, 2025 ballot have any dollar figures published against their names. The other 204 records contain a candidate’s name, a party label and the name of an official agent, and then nothing. Every financial line is empty, including the election expenses limit, a figure Elections Canada calculates itself rather than one a campaign reports.
The blanks are not nil filings. Three candidates whose campaigns raised nothing, Green candidate Ashley MacDonald, Liberal Darcy Spady and New Democrat Katherine Swampy, each appear in the same database with contributions recorded as $0.00 and their expenses reported in full. A campaign that reports zero shows zero. The 204 show nothing at all.
Under section 477.59 of the Canada Elections Act, a candidate’s official agent must give the Chief Electoral Officer an electoral campaign return within four months of polling day. Elections Canada’s own political financing calendar sets that deadline at Dec. 18, 2025 for the Battle River-Crowfoot vote.
One name accounts for almost the entire gap. Of the 204 records without figures, 203 list the same official agent, Tomas Szuchewycz. The 204th is Ahmed Hassan of the Centrist Party of Canada, whose agent is listed as Aya Mohamed. CBC News has reported that most of the 200-plus entries on that ballot came from the Longest Ballot Committee, an electoral reform group that floods ballots to protest first-past-the-post voting. WestCentralOnline reported when the confirmed list was issued on July 30, 2025 that 10 of the 214 were party candidates and that the rest were largely independents running under the same official agent.
The pattern is not confined to the by-election. In the April 28, 2025 general election, the same tactic put 91 candidates on the ballot in Carleton. The first record in that riding’s returns file, independent Sana Ahmad, also lists Szuchewycz as official agent and is also entirely blank. The filing deadline in that case was Aug. 28, 2025, more than a year ago.
The 10 returns that do exist say something of their own. Pierre Poilievre, who won the seat with 41,308 votes, reported four contributors and $2,800 in direct contributions, alongside $187,710.81 transferred in from his party and $151,089.83 in election expenses subject to the limit. Independent Bonnie Critchley, who finished second with 5,018 votes, reported 3,129 contributors and $245,405.92 in contributions, no transfers at all, and $132,400.67 in election expenses. On the public record, an independent with no party behind her raised roughly 88 times as much in direct donations as the leader of the Official Opposition, who out-spent her using money moved in from national headquarters. Spady, the Liberal candidate, reported no contributors, $93,000 in transfers and $61,816.42 in election expenses.
Under the database’s “data as amended” view, which holds corrected and revised returns, exactly one record exists for the entire by-election: Poilievre’s.
A blank record is not proof that nothing was filed. It could equally mean a return was submitted and has not yet been processed or published. The database does not distinguish between the two possibilities, and Elections Canada has published no explanation for the gap. What the public register shows, and all it shows, is that for 204 of the 214 candidates in a federal by-election held more than a year ago, Canadians cannot see a single dollar raised or spent.
Sources: Elections Canada, Candidate’s Electoral Campaign Return database (data as submitted and data as amended), Aug. 18, 2025 by-election and 45th general election, retrieved Sept. 5, 2026; Elections Canada political financing calendar (2026 and 2025); Canada Elections Act, s. 477.59; WestCentralOnline; CBC News.
