Halifax Mayor Mike Savage raised $123K in election campaign donations

The mayor of Halifax raised nearly $123,000 during his 2016 re-election campaign and a quarter of those contributions came from developers and those in the real estate or construction industry.

Mike Savage is in favour of campaign reform, but is not that concerned about who makes the donations.

"I'm not fixed on that at all, but I'm open to having the conversation," Savage said. "Council will decide if there should be people you don't accept money from."

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The municipality released details of campaign donations this week for all candidates who ran in the October election, including Savage.

In 2012, when he first ran for the mayor's job, Savage raised close to $309,000. Contributions from companies in the development, construction or real estate sector came to $91,500, or 30 per cent of the total amount raised.

Few rules

There are very few rules for municipal campaign contributions but there has been a push for reform. The Halifax Regional Municipality needed approval from the province and that didn't come in time for the 2016 election.

The mayor said he did make some voluntary changes to his campaign.

"I said, 'Let's put a limit of $2,500 on donations for me,'" Savage said. "And I said I'm not comfortable with carrying large surpluses so I don't want to have a surplus."

Changes may come

Savage also believes there should be overall limits for both councillor and mayoralty campaigns, limits on individual donations and disclosure of how candidates spend the contributions. He's also against raising donations between campaigns.

A staff report on campaign reforms is expected early in 2017 so new rules may in place for the next municipal election.

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