Government Operations committee  Just to clarify, when it comes to things like the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl, we have to remember that we're looking at the Canadian market and not the North American market. When we advertise, we're advertising on a network. In the case of the Academy Awards, it's CTV, and we're looking at about a three-million-viewer population.

Government Operations committee  When we buy them, we always plan it in advance. We will look for a package. Cossette Communications will be looking for a package--

Government Operations committee  It's a reach. The way it works, the budget remains the same. It's trying to see how much penetration we have into the market.

Government Operations committee  It goes through the government purchasing site, which is MERX. We have an open national competition and everyone is able to bid. It's open and transparent. Based on the bids, a company is selected. In this case, in April 2010 a communications contract was awarded on a two-year basis, with three one-year options.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I'll clarify that we're not aware of any. We have had a couple of instances when people have said that they've been close, and we investigated them. I'll give you one example where someone said the ad had dovetailed, and it was during the Academy Awards, as an example. When we did a check, the ads were not in the same station break; they were about ten minutes apart.

Government Operations committee  In essence, that's correct. What would happen is that our agency of record would then go back to the broadcaster and try to make good on the situation. The normal practice for the community is that they would treat it that way and then they would find another 30- or 60-second spot and rerun the ad.

Government Operations committee  Not very often.

Government Operations committee  Okay. I could speak a little bit to the numbers, not to the rationale behind it. The H1N1 campaign for fiscal year 2009-10 came to $23.5 million. That was the amount spent in total on that campaign. For the EAP, the economic action plan, a total of $53.2 million is the amount we have.

Government Operations committee  Pour quelle année? Sorry, it was 2009-10.

Government Operations committee  Overall, for all the departments for 2009-10, we had already released estimates. The estimated amount of $130 million was the total we released in our various order paper questions. We have since refined those numbers, because we are preparing to release our annual report. That's now been refined to $136.3 million in total for the Government of Canada.

Government Operations committee  They're responsible for the media placement, not for the creative design of the ads.

Government Operations committee  It does not, that we're aware of. We're not aware of a back-to-back or a dovetailing happening. If it is brought to our attention, we will bring it to the attention of the agency of record and the broadcaster. At that point, the broadcaster is asked to make good on it—that's the term in the contract—which basically would mean that they would treat the Government of Canada ad as not having happened, and then we'd rebroadcast it.

Government Operations committee  I'll take that one. First of all, we're not responsible for the buys for the political parties.

Government Operations committee  We issue guidelines to the agency of record, and they are passed on to the broadcasters, about proper spacing and how these ads show up in broadcast.