The political race is over for Enza “Supermodel” Anderson – but she won’t sue the Canadian Alliance party for making it hard for her to become leader of their party.
Enza signed up more than 300 new Canadian Alliance members, but only managed to raise a little over $7,500 of the required $25,000 fee to run for the candidacy. This despite attracting Tory bigwigs and Bay St types to her campaign.
She considered suing the Alliance for setting the fundraising bar so high.
“Our lawyers advised us that it would cost a quarter of a million dollars to launch the lawsuit against the Canadian Alliance and that there are no guarantees that it would be successful,” says Ian Ross, her campaign director of communications.
The Canadian Charter says there can be no monetary barrier for anyone who runs for office. But the Alliance’s constitution allows the party to charge candidates up to $25,000.
While the Alliance gets to keep the $10 membership fees Enza collected, Ross says that it costs the Alliance $15 to process them – so they did the party more harm than good.
What’s Enza going to do with the money she did raise?
Our deal was “if she didn’t get on the ballot the money was to be given to the charity of her choice and Enza’s favourite charity is the Lesbian Gay Bi Youth Line,” says Ross.
As for the rest of the money….
“Everyone asks that as if they think we don’t have any expenses…. The money is being used on website costs, which are four or five thousand bucks. We had travelling expenses, printing costs for flyers, etc, etc. This was probably the cheapest campaign run in the history of Canada,” says Ross.
Enza says she’s not bitter.
“I gave it my all. I put a lot of work into it and it was fun,” says the drag queen who finished third in Toronto’s last mayoral race.
Four Alliance stalwarts – Diane Ablonczy, former leader Stockwell Day, Stephen Harper and Grant Hill (who said that homosexuals are unhealthy) – raised the funds needed to get on the ballot. Voting takes place between Fri, Mar 8 and 15.
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