Where do donors come from? Using census data to predict donations to Canadian federal election candidates

Who is mostly likely to contribute to electoral-district level candidates in Canadian federal elections? This paper uses data from the Elections Canada Political Financing Database of Contributions made to individual candidates in the 2015, 2019 and 2021 general elections, matched to socio-demographic data from the 2016 census, at the Dissemination Area level. We find that the areas that are most likely to have donors are older, with higher median income and higher percentage of the population with post-secondary education. The data also further supports previous findings from the Canadian context suggesting that areas with a greater percentage of visible minorities of South and Southeast Asian origin are most likely to donate to local campaigns. When turning to overall contribution amounts, we find that the effects of these socio-demographic variables are somewhat weakened (though not eliminated). This points to a major difference between areas producing donors vs. those without donors, rather than between the levels of donations in a small geographic area.