Highlights of financial data for authorized political entities in 2019

Élections Québec has released the financial reports of authorized political entities for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019.

Authorized political entities include provincial political parties, party authorities, MNAs and authorized independent candidates.

You can now read the financial reports or use our contributor search engine to find details on this financial data.

Highlights¹

• In 2019, 21 political parties, 370 party authorities, one independent MNA and three independent candidates were authorized.²
• Authorized political entities reported total revenues of $15M in 2019.
  • 2% of these revenues ($14.4M) were raised by the four political parties represented in the National Assembly: the Coalition avenir Québec – L’équipe François Legault (CAQ), the Quebec Liberal Party (QLP), the Parti québécois (PQ) and Québec solidaire (QS).
• Élections Québec provided more than $11.2 million in public funding to political entities. This financial support from the state represents 74.6% of the total revenues reported by authorized entities.
  • 7% of this financial support ($10.7M) was allocated to the four political parties represented in the National Assembly.
• The entities incurred expenses of $11.2M, representing a surplus of income (revenues) over expenditure (expenses) of $3.8M.

Political entities collected $1,884,661 from 23,905 electors, who contributed an average of $78.84 per contribution. A full 96.9% of contributions were designated to the four political parties represented in the National Assembly.

Our role in political financing

Under the Election Act, our responsibilities involve oversight and education. In terms of oversight, we ensure that provincial rules on political financing and election expenses are applied and respected. Among other things, this includes:

• Authorizing political entities;
• Confirming that authorized political entities are complying with the provisions of the Act;
• Receiving, examining and, where applicable, auditing financial reports and returns of election expenses;
• Receiving contributions from electors, confirming their compliance and forwarding them to the authorized political entity concerned;
• Inquiring into the legality of expenditures incurred by authorized political entities, as well as of election contributions and expenses.

¹ The data are drawn from financial reports submitted to Élections Québec by authorized political entities up to September 1, 2020.

² At the time of publication, four political parties had not submitted their financial reports.