Elections Manitoba says Manitoba Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Wally Daudrich still has not filed his campaign financial statement from the race that ended last April, his official agent has already been assessed the maximum $750 late-filing fee, and daily late fees have now begun accruing against Daudrich himself until the statement is filed.
The fee moves from the agent to the candidate
Elections Manitoba said this week that, as of the time of its statement, Daudrich had not filed the financial paperwork required from the leadership race. The contest ended last April, when he finished a close second to Obby Khan.
Manitoba’s system applies the penalty in stages. A candidate or leadership contestant who misses a deadline, or an extension authorized by Elections Manitoba, is assessed $25 a day for a maximum of 30 days, for a total of up to $750. The fee is applied first to the contestant’s official agent. If the paperwork is still missing after that, a second round of fees is applied to the candidate.
That is the stage Daudrich’s campaign has reached. “The late filing fee of $750 was assessed to … the official agent for Walter Daudrich,” Elections Manitoba said in a statement on Thursday. Once the agent had reached the 30-day maximum, the agency issued Daudrich a notice of failure to file, he became responsible for filing, and, because the statement still has not been filed, he is now incurring daily fees for up to 30 days or until it is filed.
Elections Manitoba’s website says Daudrich had received an authorized extension, and that it expired on Nov. 17.
What the missing statement must show
Under provincial law, people who run for a seat in the legislature or for a party leadership must file returns setting out, among other things, their revenues and expenses and the names of donors who contributed $250 or more.
Elections Manitoba’s leadership-contest rules add detail to that requirement. Contestants must appoint an auditor and an official agent to manage their finances. An audited financial statement, filed on Form 947, is due within 30 days after the leadership contest period ends, and that period itself runs for two months after the leadership vote. Names of donors and contributions over $250 are posted online, and no individual may contribute more than $3,000 in total during a leadership contest period.
In other words, the missing document is the public record of who paid for Daudrich’s campaign and what it spent — the disclosure the whole filing system is designed to produce.
Daudrich addressed the delay last month. He said there had been a problem with his bank being unable to release account statements quickly, but that his official agent had been working on the matter and was ready to file. He could not be reached for comment this week by phone or text message.
Daudrich is a business owner and a longtime Progressive Conservative board member. He has said he plans to seek the party’s nomination in Spruce Woods, in western Manitoba, ahead of the next provincial election, scheduled for Oct. 5, 2027.
Khan filed in September
The contrast inside the same race is direct. Khan’s financial returns were filed in September, after he received an extension from Elections Manitoba. They show he raised just over $132,000 and spent slightly more than $140,000. His listed donors included Heather Stefanson, the former Progressive Conservative leader and premier whom both men were competing to succeed as party leader.
Late fees of this kind are not unusual in Manitoba politics. Elections Manitoba assessed more than $3,500 in late-filing fees in 2024 to candidate campaigns from the previous year’s provincial election.
For Daudrich, the arithmetic is now running against him personally rather than his campaign organization: $25 a day, to a second maximum of $750, ending only when the audited statement is filed.
