The federal government’s public works department will not provide statistics on the number of occasions that federal advertisements break rules on partisan promotions.
“How many times has the review process flagged ads that are partisan?” was the question asked at a hearing of the Commons public accounts committee, according to Blacklock’s Reporter on June 19.
“The number of times that issues were flagged by Ad Standards in the initial review does not provide any relevant information. When this has occurred the issues were addressed in the final review,” said the note.
It was also asked what the purpose is of advertising by the federal government. “The government has an obligation to inform Canadians about policies, programs, services, rights and responsibilities as well as to alert them to environmental, public health and safety issues. Advertising is one of the means of communications used to achieve this and is an important way for the government to get timely information to Canadians,” said the note.
In 2016, the Treasury Board, in a Directive on the Management of Communications, warned that all federal advertising should be non-partisan, specifically “free from political party slogans, images, identifiers, bias, designation or affiliation,” including the use of a “primary colour associated with the governing party” or “any name, voice or image of a minister, MP or senator.”
At the time, Treasury Board President Scot Brison said at a news conference, “We want to make it absolutely clear from this day forward that government advertising using tax dollars is unacceptable.”
The directive stated that all federal marketing campaigns that spent more than $250,000 had to be reviewed by Advertising Standards Canada to flag for partisan content. A department briefing note said that the process was “optional for advertising campaigns with budgets under the established threshold.”
In 2021, the federal government spent $140.8 million on advertising, the highest amount recorded. Half that spending, roughly $62 million, was related to COVID-19 messaging. Public Works prepared an annual report on the federal government’s advertising activities, noting that “the Covid-19 pandemic remained a high priority.”
In 2019, an election year, the government spent $50.1 million on ads. In 2015, the total spent on ads was $42.2 million.
In 2013, the Liberal caucus introduced a private bill C-544, An Act to Amend the Auditor General Act, which if passed would have appointed a federal commissioner to review advertising and monitor government spending. The bill didn’t progress through Parliament and, after the Liberal Party won the election in 2015, was never revived.
Each quarter, the federal government publishes the results of Ad Standards reviews against the rules. From Jan. 1 to March 31, 531 creative ads were reviewed, and eight had modifications recommended, which were allowed to pass a final review before being published.
