

Joshua Freeman, CP24.com





Former mayoral candidate Doug Ford says nearly two thirds of the money he raised toward his failed mayoral bid last year came from his own pocket.

“It’s going to be public. Probably six hundred, a little more than six hundred thousand” the former councillor said in an interview with CP24’s Travis Dhanraj Sunday when asked how much he had personally spent. “It is (a lot of money).”

Ford threw his hat into the ring in the city’s mayoral race on September 12, 2014, the same day his brother withdrew from the race due to his cancer diagnosis.

That left him just weeks to raise money for his campaign ahead of the Oct. 27 election. Still, he managed to raise about $300,000 for a total of around $900,000, he said.

There is no limit on how much a mayoral candidate can contribute to his or her campaign from their own personal funds.

Despite finishing second to current mayor John Tory in the race, Ford said he has no regrets about the steep cost of the race.

“I think it’s worth it,” he said. “This election indirectly does affect the whole (GTA) region and there’s hundreds of thousands of people that believe what we believe in – keeping taxes low and making sure we run an efficient government.”

Ford also said his brother, former mayor Rob Ford spent about $500,000 on his own re-election campaign before dropping out of the race, with roughly $200,000 of that coming from his own coffers.

He said the two will hold a fundraising event on May 14 to try and recoup some of their costs.

“If everyone pitched in a couple of dollars that voted for me I’d have my deck cleaned up,” he said. “We didn’t have the huge donors like the other candidates did. So we’re just going to move forward and see what we can do.”

Earlier this week former candidate Olivia Chow revealed she spent $1.9 million on her campaign. She told CP24 Sunday that she gave $2,500 to her own campaign. Despite having started as the front-runner, Chow finished third in the race.

John Tory, who won the election, has not yet said how much he raised.

Mayoral candidates from last year’s race are expected to file their financial paperwork at city hall by Friday.

Speaking to his relatively small treasure chest compared to Chow, Ford said he’s satisfied with the amount he raised given his short campaign.

“They had all year to fundraise. I had four or five weeks,” he said. “We did pretty good on the fundraising. I think it was a little under $300,000 in a few weeks. I just ran out of time.”

Despite his loss, Ford said he has no plans to retire from public life.

“I always say service above self and that’s what our family believes in and we’ll continue doing it,” he said. “I still have a long career in politics and by no means have I hung up the skates yet – that’s for sure.”

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