Just before the election, Liberals handed out 411 cheques worth $3.86B – National

In the week before the 45th general election got underway on March 23, Liberal MPs engaged in a pre-election spending blitz, announcing $3.86 billion in funding commitments for 411 different projects across the country, a Global News analysis shows.

Press releases and announcements about those funding commitments were made by 38 different Liberal MPs in that final week, who handed out cheques in 37 different communities across the country, from Yellowknife to Winnipeg to St. John’s.

On the day before the election started alone, 26 different MPs were busy handing $1.8 billion worth of cheques to support 116 different projects across the country.

And yet, that’s been the pattern since the for each of the last four Parliaments during which Global News has maintained a database of every spending commitment made by one Conservative government and three Liberal governments. The information on more than 67,000 projects that received federal funds from 2011 to 2025 is extracted from the press releases issued by government departments whenever a government MP announces a federal grant or contribution.

In the final week before the 2021 election, which produced a Liberal minority, Liberals MP pushed out $30.3 billion in spending commitments for 495 projects. But the Conservatives did it too ahead of the 2015 election, which produce a Liberal majority, when Conservative MPs handed out 430 cheques in the final week before that year’s election totalling $2.7 billion.

For the entire length of the four-year-long 44th Parliament, Liberal MPs announced 22,290 projects that received or were to receive federal funding. The combined federal funding commitment for those projects totaled just over $110 billion.

The biggest projects to receive federal funds in the final week of the 44th Parliament were two transit projects in Quebec — the Quebec City Tramway and the Blue Line extension in Montreal — which received “top-ups”  of $332.3 million and $650 million, respectively. Those projects were approved by Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, then serving as the minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, but the press release quotes two Quebec Liberal MPs — Jean-Yves Duclos and Jöel Lightbound — and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Quebec lieutenant and Montreal MP Steven Guilbeault — all of whom were on the hustings seeking re-election the day after those announcements were made.

Also on the day before the election  — March 22 — Guilbeault announced, on behalf of Erskine-Smith, $400 million for 11 “green” infrastructure projects across Quebec.

The Liberals would go on to have their best electoral performance in Quebec in decades, winning 44 seats.

Liberal MP Terry Sheehan won the riding of Sault Ste. Marie in 2015, 2019 and 2021 but was facing a big challenge in 2025 because of the redrawing of the country’s riding boundaries. Where once Sheehan only had to worry about voters in the city of the Soo, his riding now stretched across hundreds of kilometres of Ontario’s north, from Elliott Lake in the east to Wawa in the northwest. And, after transposing the votes from 2021 to the new riding boundaries of Sault Ste. Marie–Algoma, Sheehan, though he was the incumbent, was the underdog. More people in his new riding had voted Conservative in 2021 than had voted Liberal.

And so, starting in the summer of 2024, Sheehan started travelling outside his own riding to hand out federal government cheques in communities that were to become part of the riding he would contest in 2025. It is exceedingly rare for government MPs who are not cabinet ministers to make spending announcements in ridings represented by opposition MPs but that’s what Sheehan did: first in Wawa on July 26, 2024 to hand out four cheques worth $972,057, and then in in Elliott Lake on Oct 17, 2024, to hand out four cheques worth $1.7 million. In the final week before the election call, Sheehan visited Serpent River First Nation to anounced federal funding of $108,000 on March 20 to develop a tourism plan and then travelling to Wawa again on March 21 to hand out two cheques worth $1.8 million. Wawa, Elliott Lake and Serpent River FN are all located in what used to be New Democrat Carol Hughes riding, not Sheehan’s old riding.

Sheehan would win the new riding of Sault Ste Marie–Algoma — which now included Wawa, Elliott Lake and Serpent River FN —  by 1,728 votes, or less than three percentage points.

But showing up with a handful of cheques before a campaign gets underway is not always a guarantee of electoral success. Liberal George Chahal, for example, would lose his seat in northeast Calgary even though he announced funding commitments the day before campaigning started for 13 different projects across Alberta worth a combined $8.3 million, ranging from $2 million to “scale up and enhance” the city’s Energy Transition Centre, to $50,000 for the city of Grande Prairie to do a “hydrogen foundational study.” Chahal made those spending announcements on behalf Anita Anand who was then acting as the minister in charge of Prairies Economic Development Canada.

Similarly, the Liberals spent the four years of the 44th Parliament pouring millions into hundreds of projects in the riding of Liberal MP and former minister Diane Lebouthiller. Lebouthillier’s name was on most of the press releases announcing the $242.42 million spent on 267 projects in the riding the former riding of Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine. That was the second highest number of projects funded in any of the country’s 343 ridings. But it was to no avail.  Se lost to a BQ challenger in the new riding of Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj.

Same thing in the western Newfoundland riding of Long Range Mountains where, over the last four years, the Liberal government funded 209 projects — ninth most of any riding — worth $77.12 million but lost the riding to the Conservatives.

The number of spending commitments made during the four-year-long 44th Parliament and their overall value — 22,290 worth $110 billion — easily eclipsed those of any of the three previous Parliaments.

During the four years of the 41st Parliament, during which Stephen Harper led a majority government, Conservative MPs made 7,307 spending announcements touting a combined $90-billion in funding commitments.

Spending announcements are never made by opposition MPs. The only names on the press releases taking credit for any spending are government MPs or cabinet ministers. Opposition MPs never get any public credit for spending announcements even though opposition MPs often play a role in helping local organizations and businesses access federal funding programs.

During the first Trudeau Parliament, from 2015 to 2019, Liberal MPs made 20,672 announcements for a combined $80 billion in funding commitments. In the 43rd Parliament, the first Trudeau minority from 2019 to 2021, ministers and government MPs made 16,761 announcements worth a combined $29.5 billion.

So far in the 45th Parliament, the Carney government has made four spending commitments, the biggest of which is a $410-million contract to build a federal Transportation Safety and Technology Science hub in Ottawa.

While the information about each project and its matching funding commitment are extracted from press releases, Global News also makes a determination, where possible, about the community where the funds will be spent and, in doing so, can track which ridings are getting the federal funding. There were 500 spending announcements worth $10.7 billion for projects outside of the country and 1,129 worth $25.9 billion where Global News could not determine where the spending would occur, or determined the spending for a single project would occur in two more ridings held by different parties.

That said, Global News was able to determine the riding location for 20,675 projects worth a combined $78.5 billion. Of those, most were projects in ridings held by Liberal MPs: 9,834 projects with a combined funding commitment of $35.8 billion. Ridings held by Conservative MPs received funding commitments of $23.5 billion for 7,038 projects. NDP ridings received $7.27 billion across 2,456 projects and BQ ridings received $10.7 billion across 1,043 projects.