Hatters line up to vote during the municipal election on Oct. 20, 2025. Campaign expenses have now been disclosed, with more money than ever before coming into play. Drew Barnes, who unsuccessfully challenged the mayoral seat in Medicine Hat last October, spent more than $53,000 on his campaign, the most ever recorded in the city's history.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
The 2025 municipal election was the priciest on record for both the council and the mayoral seats.
Mayoral candidate Drew Barnes’s failed bid for the mayoral seat was the most expensive campaign in Medicine Hat history.
Barnes collected over $53,000 for his effort, spending nearly all of it, with a $312.23 surplus left over after the campaign’s close.
Barnes’s campaign expenses more than doubled those of the two frontrunners in 2021. Ted Clugston spent just under $25,000 in his third run for mayor. Linnsie Clark spent just over $20,000 on her successful bid.
Clark and Clugston’s expenditures were already a 30 per cent increase over 2017’s highest campaign spenders, when Clugston raised and spent $16,000 to win his second term.
Barnes’s campaign contributions included two donations of $5,000.
One came from The Monarch Corporation, which local philanthropist and businessman Bill Yuill overseas as chairman and CEO. The second came from Happy Hollow Investments Ltd.
In 2025, Barnes’s spending far outpaced any other candidate.
In her successful run for re-election, Clark raised $5,445, to which she added $4,137.73 from her own funds for a campaign costing a total of $9,582.73.
Former councillor Andy McGrogan spent the second most, raising more than $21,000 and spending just shy of $3,000 of his own money on his challenge to Clark, which cost just over $24,000 in total.
Alan Rose ran a campaign costing just over $11,000, of which $8,000 was donated. Kris Samraj funded about half his campaign himself, with a total price tag just under $5,000.
Mark Fisher did not receive any contributions or incur any expenses related to his bid for mayor.
According to provincial policy on campaign expense limits, mayoral candidates can spend a maximum of $1 per person based on the average population of the municipality, or $20,000, whichever is greater.
That leaves the maximum available spend for mayoral campaigns in Medicine Hat around $68,000. The average cost of a winning campaign for a council seat was $7,020.74.
The average is substantially lowered by the success of first-time councillor Dan Reynish, who won a seat without recording any contributions or expenses related to his campaign.
Still, it represents a substantial jump from the average cost of a council chair in 2021, which was $5,061. It ranks closer to the cost recorded in 2017, when the average councillor spent $6,500.
Most of the biggest spenders in the council race obtained seats, including Yusuf Mohammed and Cheryl Pfaff, who each spent $9,000 or more on their campaigns, landing in the top five priciest bids.
Mohammed’s council campaign cost the most, just cracking $11,500. Of that total, only $382.34 came from his own funds, making him the highest fundraiser among his peers. His biggest donors gave him $1,000 apiece.
Mohammed also took home the most votes of any successful councillor in October, receiving 8,242 ballots.
Among successful councillors, only Bill Cocks funded most of his campaign from his own funds, putting up $4,803 of his $7,098 bid.
Brian Varga’s $4,595 campaign was funded entirely by donations. So was Stuart Young’s $6,061.40 and Pfaff’s $9,449 bid.
Troy Wason, who spent the second most among council contenders at just over $11,000, did not successfully secure a seat. Nearly all of Wason’s campaign was donor-funded, with only $109 coming from his personal funds.
Wason took home 1,637 votes, while the last council chair went to Brian Varga with 3,870 votes.
Other pricy failed bids included Immanuel Moritz, who placed outside the top eight in the 15th position, Brian Robinson in 18th and Steven Pudwell in 17th.
Moritz had the fifth most expensive campaign of all council contenders at $8,249.
Robinson’s bid cost $7,262, with Pudwell’s just behind at $6,931. Pudwell’s bid was funded entirely out of his own funds.
Newcomer Adam Koch and incumbent Robert Dumanowski, who missed a council spot by 113 and 114 votes respectively, each put forward over $1,500 of their own money in their unsuccessful bids. Koch’s campaign cost just over $7,000 in total, while Dumanowski spent just under $5,000.
Other council hopefuls whose campaigns were funded at least halfway by donors included Ron Fode ($4,515.94), Laura Butterfield ($3,918.71), Pamela Kunz ($3,618), Jodi-Ann Faith ($2,170.35), Brock Hale ($1,829.31), Donald Knudsen ($1,105.93), Randall Noble ($946.04), Kevin Monson ($991.19) and Kaleb Orge ($600).
Every candidate for mayor and council filed their expenses in time for the publication deadline. A total of 45 Hatters ran for the two offices.
