VANCOUVER — Liberal leadership hopefuls admit fundraising has been difficult and some fear the money woes could make for a sparsely attended convention in December.

"Every campaign is having trouble with money," former minister and hockey legend Ken Dryden acknowledged Wednesday.

"Different rules, two elections in a short period of time, having lost an election, a (leadership) campaign that never ends, all of those things make a campaign difficult to do. But you adapt.''

Dryden, who has had to lay off some paid campaign staff, denied rumours that money troubles will force him to drop out of the race.

Dryden said all campaigns have been forced to scale back, relying more heavily on volunteers, hiring fewer paid staff and paying them less.

"You just find different ways of doing the same thing."

Scott Brison, whose campaign director has stepped aside to find better-paying, permanent work but will continue to work as a volunteer, admitted that fundraising has been "challenging." But he insisted his campaign is doing "better than most."

Even Michael Ignatieff, the presumed frontrunner, admitted fundraising "has been a challenge."

"We've had to economize.''

Bob Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario and leading money raiser in the Liberal contest, agreed that economizing is the "new reality'' for all contenders.

"We're all going to have to cut our sails to meet the wind. There's no point in complaining about the wind," he said.

"You sail in choppy waters, that's just the way it is. Get used to it."

The party has set a spending limit of $3.4 million on each of the 10 candidates but so far no one has come close to raising even one-third of that amount.

The party posted on its website Wednesday lists of donations received by each candidate, supposedly up to the end of July. However, before reporters could tally up each camp's take the party shut down the site because it inadvertently included candidates' home phone numbers and addresses.

Moreover, all camps were furious that the party had excluded tens of thousands in donations that have not yet been processed by the party, through which donations are funnelled in order to provide tax receipts. Insiders in several camps said it takes the party three or more weeks to process donations and get the money back to the candidates.

Because of the foul-up with the party's lists, most camps released their own, more up-to-date tallies of their donations. By that measure:

• Rae led the pack with donations of $478,750 by the end of July. He also has loans of $275,000.
• Ignatieff had raised $373,922 to July 31, with loans of $125,000.
• Gerard Kennedy had raised $361,503 up to Aug. 12, with loans of $200,000.
• Joe Volpe had raised $340,000 up to July 31, with no loans.
• Brison had raised $230,000 up to Aug. 22, with loans of $200,000.
• Stephane Dion had raised $155,000 up to Aug. 22, with loans of $530,000.
• Carolyn Bennett had raised $77,350 up to Aug. 22, with a loan of $35,000.

According to the party's dubious website lists, Dryden had raised $49,194, Martha Hall Findlay had raised $36,835 and Hedy Fry had raised $15,061 by the end of July.

The Liberal contest is the first to be run under new political financing rules, which limit individual donations to $5,400 and prohibit contributions from corporations and trade unions.

In the past, donations to leadership contestants were unlimited and campaigns raised and spent millions. Former Liberal leader Paul Martin is thought to have spent in excess of $10 million to win the title in 2003.

The party has always forbidden candidates from directly paying for delegates to attend leadership conventions, but that rule has been routinely ignored in the past.

This time, candidates can't afford such largesse and, in any event, the changes to political financing laws now make such direct payments to delegates illegal. Candidates can, however, indirectly help riding associations raise money to subsidize delegates, who must fork out up to about $3,000 in convention fees, travel, hotel and meal expenses.

But with the candidates struggling to raise money for their own campaigns, some fear they won't be able to devote much effort to fundraising for delegates.

"It may be $3,000 per person and very few people are ready to pay that from their pocket. So it's an issue for all the candidates,'' said Dion, the sole Quebec candidate.

Ignatieff said he's heard concerns about Liberal rank and file being unable to afford to attend the convention, particularly in "rural parts of Canada.''

"I do hear that concern. I think we do need to meet that challenge because we do not want to have a convention in which less well-off Canadians don't get a shot."

He said his campaign and others will be trying "almost on a non-partisan basis'' to help raise money for delegates.

Dion said the issue of how to ensure delegates can afford to attend the convention is "a huge one."

"It's very important for all of us because if I have a good result after the super (delegate selection) weekend (at the end of September) but most of them are not coming to Montreal, it would be sad,'' he said.

Once delegates are chosen, Dion said October and November "will be very demanding'' for candidates, who will have to help raise money to ensure those delegates can actually make it to Montreal.

Dion said "it would not be good'' if the winner is determined by which candidate is best able to subsidize his or her own delegates.

Rae said all candidates should work together to ensure all delegates are able to attend the convention.

"I think that's a great idea. I think we need to work together . . . in terms of making it possible for this thing to work."

Despite the challenges, Ignatieff said the donation limits have been "one of the best things to happen to this party in a long time."

He said it's good for democracy that no candidate is beholden to a handful of wealthy donors. Campaigns must be run "on the cheap and that's also good for democracy," he added.

"We don't need these vast machines."

If the Conservative government gets its way, however, the impact of donation limits on the Liberals' convention could be far more serious.

As part of its Federal Accountability Act, the Harper government is proposing to reduce the individual donation limit to $1,000. It is hoping to have the act passed by Thanksgiving and has said the new limit would go into effect immediately.

Since delegate fees count as a political donation, the Tory bill would mean that anyone who has donated more than $5 to the Liberal party this year would not be legally able to pay the $995 convention fee.