Election Finance

By law, all candidates and third party advertisers can only fundraise and incur expenses during the official campaign period for an upcoming municipal or school board election. Their campaign period begins on the day they register and ends for everyone on the same date.

For the 2025 Markham Ward 7 By-Election, the campaign period ends for all candidates and third party advertisers on November 13, 2025.

If a candidate or third party advertiser has a deficit by the end of their campaign period, they can file a form with Elections Markham requesting a 6-month extension. Extensions have to be requested before the standard campaign period ends.

Once a campaign ends, a candidate or third party advertiser should close their campaign bank account and prepare their campaign financial statement. 

Candidates can only accept personal donations from Ontario residents. Corporations, trade unions, businesses, groups and non-Ontario residents can't donate to candidates.

Candidates and third party advertisers can’t accept donations that are:

• From an ineligible or anonymous source
• More than $1,200 to them, or would result in the donor giving more than $5,000 total to candidates running for City Council or the same school board
• From funds that don’t belong to whoever gave them
• Made outside their campaign period
• Made in cash and are greater than $25

If a candidate or third party advertiser accepts a donation that they later learn isn’t allowed, they have to return it. If they don’t know where the donation came from or how to return it, they have to give it to Elections Markham.

Candidates have to disclose the name and address of every person who donates more than $100 ($100.01+) to their campaign in their post-election financial statement. 

Every candidate and third party advertiser has to file a post-election financial statement with Elections Markham outlining what they spent and received toward their campaign (even if they withdrew their registration and had no financial activity).

For the 2025 Markham Ward 7 By-Election, all financial statements are due by 2 PM on December 15, 2025.

This should reflect all of their financial activity from the day they registered up to the end of the campaign period

If they extend their campaign, they still have to file a financial statement by the above deadline. But they also have to prepare a second financial statement that’s been updated to reflect any spending or fundraising during those extra months when they were trying to erase their deficit.

Campaign financial statements are public records and are posted at the City Clerk’s Office and on ElectionsMarkham.ca for the next two regular municipal election cycles.

Candidates and third party advertisers who don’t file their campaign financial statement by the deadline can still file their statement within 30 days, but have to pay the City a $500 late fee.

If they don’t file a campaign financial statement by the end of the 30-day late period (and haven’t applied to Ontario's Superior Court of Justice for an extension), automatic penalties apply, including:

• Removed from their office (if they were elected); and,
• Disqualified from running for any municipal council or district school board office in Ontario until after the next regular set of elections.

A Markham voter who believes that a Markham City Council candidate or a third party advertiser has broken a campaign finance rule can request an audit of the campaign’s financial records through the City's Election Finance Compliance Audit Committee. Requests have to be made in writing to Elections Markham and outline the reasons for why the requester believes the law was broken.

After the statutory filing deadline for campaign financial statements, Elections Markham reviews the individual donations disclosed by each candidate and third party advertiser in the election. If it looks like someone has donated more to a Markham City Council candidate, group of Markham City Council candidates, or third party advertiser than the law allows, this is reported to the City's Election Finance Compliance Audit Committee.

The Committee will review each case of a possible campaign finance infraction and decide whether to investigate and take legal action against the candidate, third party advertiser, and/or donor.

The deadline to request a compliance audit for a candidate or third party advertiser in the 2025 Markham Ward 7 By-Election is March 16, 2026.

View Committee's Rules of Procedure

Upcoming compliance audit committee meetings

There are no upcoming compliance audit committee meetings.

Past compliance audit committee meetings

• November 13, 2025:
  • End of campaign period
  • Deadline to a request an extension for campaigns showing a deficit
• December 15, 2025 at 2 PM:
  • Financial statements due
• January 14, 2026 at 2 PM:
  • End of late financial statement filing period (statements accepted with $500 late fee)
• May 13, 2026:
  • End of extended campaign period (for campaigns that requested an extension)
• June 12, 2026 at 2 PM:
  • Supplementary financial statements due
• July 13, 2026 at 2 PM:
  • End of late supplementary financial statement filing period (supplementary statements accepted with $500 late fee)
• September 2026:
  • Candidate contribution rebates issued (for candidates participating in the City’s contribution rebate program)

Wards 1 & 8

Wards 2 & 6

Wards 3 & 4

Wards 5 & 7

Wards 1, 2, 3 & 6

Wards 4, 5, 7 & 8

Ward 7 Councillor

English Public Trustee (York Region District School Board)

Wards 1 & 8

Wards 3 & 4