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The expected influx of cash from events featuring the prime minister and other cabinet ministers could not be more timely for the Liberals.

In politics, money matters. Michael Ignatieff, under whose leadership the Liberal Party was cash-strapped, recalled in his political memoir Fire and Ashes the effect of Conservative attack ads.

“I couldn’t watch the SuperBowl without being told I’m just visiting … The effect of their attack was immediate. Our poll numbers began to slide,” he wrote.

Perhaps it was memories of those unhappy days that prompted the increasingly desperate sounding emails coming from the Liberal Party last week.

Christina Topp, the party’s senior director of fundraising, sent an email to supporters last Saturday, urging them to donate.

“Any moment now, we could find out that the Conservatives outraised us in Q1 (January to March of 2017),” she wrote.

On Tuesday, Elections Canada revealed that not only had the Conservatives raised more money from donors in the first three months of this year, they nearly doubled the Liberal effort.

The Tories raised $5.3 million from 42,473 donors — an average of $125 per donation.

That number does not include the $4 million raised by Conservative leadership candidates in the first three months of this year.

The equivalent numbers for the Liberals were $2.8 million from 31,812 donors, for an average of $88.10 per person.

The NDP lagged far behind, raising just $908,892 from 13,404 donors — an average of $67.80.