Liberal leadership candidate Bonnie Crombie has taken heat from her opponents over the campaign donations she's taken from property developers, but in an email to supporters, she's touting them as an advantage.
In a fundraising email sent Monday, she celebrated having raised more than $1 million, "nearly double what all of the other candidates’ campaigns have raised combined."
You can see Crombie's fundraising prowess in the animated graph below, based on the latest available data from Elections Ontario.
In the email, she also decries the criticism her opponents have levelled at her for accepting donations from developers, some of whom have also donated to Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative party.
"My success with fundraising has not gone unnoticed by two of the other candidates running to lead our party. Our campaign is being criticized for accepting donations from individuals who want to beat Doug Ford. Some of my donors are being attacked because of what they do for a living. I reject that criticism and I reject the entire premise of the attacks," she wrote to supporters.
"Our campaign has followed all campaign-finance rules. Every single time. All leadership donations are capped at a maximum of $3,350 and are disclosed publicly."
In August, The Trillium first reported that 10 executives at a single development corporation donated more than $30,000 to Crombie. The Globe reported the same last week.
Names matching 10 executives at HBNG Holborn Group, a land developer and builder based in Vaughan, appear on her donor list. Each donated the maximum amount, $3,350, and nine of the 10 donations were made over three days in late June. Eight of the people with names matching HBNG Holborn Group executives have donated $20,000 to PC causes, including Doug Ford’s leadership campaign, over the past five years, and one gave $480 to the Liberal party.
The Trillium also reported on donations from developer "super donors" to Crombie's last municipal campaign, finding she accepted $37,200 from the most prolific developer donors in the region.
After that story was published, one of Crombie's opponents promised to ban the kind of "bundled donations" highlighted in the reporting.
Yasir Naqvi, an MP and former Ontario cabinet minister, said he'd ban groups of donations to the same candidate from people residing at the same address or working for the same company.
A Naqvi Liberal government would "explicitly ban the practice of bundling large political donations from multiple related donors," his platform promises. "When every individual executive of a company with business before the government, and numerous members of each of their families, all contribute the maximum personal amount, it is clear the spirit of the existing ban on corporate donations is not being followed."
Asked if that promise was directed at Crombie, Naqvi said it was aimed at anyone circumventing the spirit of the law banning corporate and union donations.
"Bundling, the way we're seeing Doug Ford benefit from, or other individuals, really undermines the public's confidence in our political process, which is damaging to our democracy," he said.
Since then, he's targeted Crombie for her developer donations in the leadership debates, asking how the public can "expect different results” from her when she's taken money from the same donors as the premier.
Another competitor, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, has also questioned her decision to take the donations.
"Successful fundraising is a necessary part of our politics. But there should never even be a perception of improper influence, especially as we look to take on Doug Ford's corruption. Integrity is Ford's greatest weakness and it should be our strength," he said in a statement Monday.
"It's in our party's interest for all of us to ask legitimate questions of one another in this leadership contest that will inevitably be asked in any general election. It isn't an attack to ask Mayor Crombie to explain the $30,000 in co-ordinated donations from 10 execs at one development corporation that had business before her city council, and why she failed to recuse herself.
"Success in fundraising isn't only measured in total dollars, it is measured in how we go about raising those funds, including the number of small grassroots donors that help our party to grow."
In her fundraising email sent on Monday, Crombie argued that her opponents have the wrong priorities.
"Why does this matter? Because the reality is, our party needs to significantly improve our fundraising efforts or we will not be competitive in the next election," she wrote.
"Since the beginning of this year, our party has raised $618,000. In comparison, Doug Ford raised $6 million in one night. We can’t underestimate fundraising. Or we will lose.
"Conservatives are consistently raising 10 times more than us. This gap is unacceptable. I am determined to turn this around.
"As Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, I will make certain that our fundraising effort matches Doug Ford’s Conservatives and I will eliminate the huge financial advantage they currently enjoy. I commit to making us competitive again."
Crombie also denies that the donations she's accepted will influence her.
"And let me be perfectly clear," she writes, "if anyone is donating to the Ontario Liberal Party in hopes of another Doug Ford cash-for-access government, they are in for a rude awakening."
This story was updated after it was first published with a statement from Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.
