Conservatives spent $99-million in 2025, compared to $55-million spent by the Liberals, according to financial statements published this month through Elections CanadaJennifer Gauthier/Reuters
The federal Conservatives outspent the Liberals almost two to one last year despite losing the general election to Mark Carney’s incumbent party, which won a fourth consecutive campaign.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s party also ended the year in debt, even as it raised a record $48.4-million from supporters in 2025. The Liberals, meanwhile, ended the year with no debt, after raising $29.6-million. Each party also received more than $30-million in election rebates.
According to financial statements published this month through Elections Canada, the Official Opposition Conservatives spent $99-million in 2025, compared to $55-million spent by the Liberals.
The annual statements from all federal political parties were supposed to be submitted to Elections Canada by June 30. However, the agency said the NDP requested an extension and has been given until the end of August to file its statement. The New Democrats did not respond to a request for information from The Globe and Mail.
How close is Carney to achieving his top promises? Here’s a status report
The stark financial differences between the country’s two biggest political parties turned heads in Ottawa. The Liberals pulled off an improbable win in April, 2025, while the Conservatives lost despite a double-digit lead in the polls at the beginning of the year – and what documents now show was a far bigger war chest and spend.
The Liberals won the race with 44 per cent of the vote and 169 seats, the Conservatives got 41 per cent of the vote and 143 seats. Mr. Carney has since secured a majority government through floor crossings from the Tories and NDP.
Pollster Nik Nanos said the Conservatives and Mr. Poilievre have little to show for all the spending.
“If the objective is to build the brand for your leader or to get people to support your party, that money hasn’t moved the dial on either one of those critical measures,” Mr. Nanos said.
The Conservatives outspent the Liberals by $44-million in total last year, including with almost $17-million spent on advertising outside of the writ period. During the spring campaign, the parties were subject to a nearly $36-million election expense limit, which they each came close to meeting.
The Conservatives’ 2021 campaign manager Fred DeLorey said he doesn’t begrudge his party’s decision to spend all that it had fundraised and even go into debt. During an election year, you can’t leave anything on the table, he said, and the party’s effective fundraising means it can quickly erase debts.
However, Mr. DeLorey said how the money was spent raises questions, and suggests poor strategic decision-making.
For example, he said an expensive pre-writ ad campaign that attempted to define the new Liberal Leader as “carbon tax Carney” missed the mark with voters and ended up reminding them that Mr. Carney was the one to cancel the consumer carbon pricing system.
“Pierre insisted on a strategy that really didn’t work,” Mr. DeLorey said. “They would have spent a gargantuan amount of money trying to define the new Prime Minister, but they chose the very worst ways to do it.”
Despite the misplays, Mr. DeLorey said he doesn’t see the spending data having an impact on Mr. Poilievre’s tenure as long as the party continues to out-fundraise the Liberals.
Dimitris Soudas, a former communications director for ex-prime minister Stephen Harper, said he is concerned by how little the Conservatives spent on voter research and public opinion polling during the writ period. The party spent $230,218 on research during the campaign, and $3.1-million in total last year. But given how volatile the campaign was, he said it suggests the party was acting on stale information.
He also said the party’s large total spend for the year is leading members to question how much went to senior advisors around Mr. Poilievre, such as campaign manager Jenni Byrne.
Overall, Mr. Soudas said party members are concerned about the Conservatives “raising so much money, spending so much money, and not delivering a victory.”
Ms. Byrne defended the campaign and noted that in 2025 the Conservatives outspent the Liberals on research. She said the bulk of that spending was intentionally done before the writ.
“We did research on many issues including cost of living, affordability, housing and Trump. That meant that we could spend the money during the writ elsewhere,” she said.
“Political parties raise money to spend it and win votes, and that is what we did.”
Opinion: The Conservatives’ critic shuffle is a sign of maturity
Ms. Byrne said she earned a flat rate of $10,000 per month between the Conservatives’ 2022 leadership race when Mr. Poilievre was elected and the end of the 2025 election. She said she was paid through her company Jenni Byrne + Associates, and while the company is still a vendor for the Conservative Party, she said she is not involved in that work.
She said her only direct involvement with party work now is as Mr. Poilievre’s representative on the national council.
Conservative communications director Sarah Fischer sent a statement noting the party won its highest vote share since 1988.
While the Liberals’ finances are under less scrutiny given their election win, Scott Reid, a onetime senior aide to former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, cautioned that the party can’t rest on its laurels and needs to improve fundraising tactics.
In the final years of Justin Trudeau’s tenure, the Liberals significantly lagged behind the Conservatives in fundraising. This left the party in a weak position heading into the election year until its revival through Mr. Carney’s leadership win and the effect that U.S. President Donald Trump had on voters in Canada.
“You can’t count on a generational lightning strike every campaign cycle,” Mr. Reid said. “If you’re going to put yourself at a chronic financial disadvantage, you’re going to fail eventually.”
“We somehow thank goodness managed to win without money. Now we better go figure out how to get money.”