Thank you. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the government's communications activities related to Canada's Economic Action Plan.
In response to the weakening of the Canadian economy and the impact of the global recession, the government committed in budget 2009 to delivering an economic stimulus package to encourage growth and restore confidence in the economy. The International Monetary Fund recently reported that Canada is on track to being the first country to begin recovering from the global recession, with expected GDP growth of 2.1% in 2010, faster growth than for any other member of the G-7.
The economic action plan represents the largest stimulus package in Canadian history. Part of the strategy to ensure rapid deployment of the plan was the rollout of a comprehensive communications approach in order to inform Canadians not only of what was in the plan, but also about how they could access the programs and benefits contained in it.
In my role as Clerk, I provide professional, non-partisan support to the Prime Minister and Cabinet on all policy and operational issues that affect the government. Communications is, of course, a component of the government's operations.
Communication is, of course, a component of the government's operations, so at the table with me today is my colleague, the deputy secretary of plans and consultations, Simon Kennedy, who is a deputy minister level official in PCO and has been responsible for managing the overall communications of the action plan.
One of his key responsibilities is to provide the government with advice on communications and to ensure the government's communications activities are carried out in a coordinated way. The specific decision on what, when, and where to communicate, of course, rests with the government.
In the context of our discussion today, I will talk about the work the PCO is doing to coordinate communications across the government for the economic action plan. In particular, I will focus my remarks on two main areas that I believe will be of interest to the committee.
These are, first, the objectives that the government has pursued in strengthening communications with regard to the economic action plan; and second, the activities that have been undertaken to meet these goals and how they conform to existing policies and rules concerning communications by the Government of Canada.
With respect to the economic stimulus package, Parliament made clear the critical importance of two key objectives: the need for a rapid deployment of the measures, and a focus on accountability to Canadians. All of our work on the communications front, whether the website, advertising, signage, or other activities, has been focused squarely on the achievements of these two objectives.
Informing Canadians about the economic action plan, whether they are individual citizens, homeowners, municipal officials, aboriginal people, or business leaders, has been an important means of supporting the uptake of the measures in the plan.
Our objective has always been to give Canadians concrete information about the different programs and services available, and how they can access those programs and services.
On the second point, accountability, Parliament made clear its desire to ensure that taxpayers see how their money is spent. Thus, communicating with Canadians about the impact of the economic action plan has been an important means of supporting this objective.
I would now like to talk briefly about the various communications activities that have been undertaken.
Let's first look at the website. It was launched in January, shortly after the budget was tabled, and at the time included basic information on the action plan. Since the initial launch, all our efforts have been to ensure that the site provides useful information so that people can not only learn how they can access the measures, but also know how their tax dollars are being used.
Now, the first major component of the website that was developed was a guide to benefits and programs. The guide allows visitors to the website to search for information on each of the more than 130 economic action plan measures, organized by client group—for example, senior, homeowner, municipal leader, aboriginal person, and so on.
It includes information on how the initiatives work, who is eligible for them, where they can apply, and how to find more information. In many cases, the guide will link the citizen directly to the application form of the program in question. This guide is one of the most popular features of the website.
The second major component of the website to be developed was the project map. Using a map of Canada to track projects, the map plots projects by location and uses technology never before deployed by the Government of Canada on such a scale. When this new feature was introduced in June, there were 3,200 projects mapped. It now contains close to 6,500 projects, and while PCO houses the map on the action plan website, the project data are supplied by departments.
This map is helping support accountability to citizens, who can use this feature of the site to find relatively detailed information about how the action plan is working in their communities.
I'd like to talk now about advertising.
Members will know that the communications policy of the government states, “In the Canadian system of parliamentary democracy and responsible government, the government has a duty to explain its policies and decisions and to inform the public of its priorities for the country”. The policy goes on to say, “The public has a right to such information”.
Earlier this year when the government introduced the economic action plan, it faced an important communications challenge: how to reach the largest number of Canadians to inform them of the measures being taken to stimulate the economy. Recognizing that advertising is the most effective way to do that, the government developed an advertising strategy.
In terms of the advertising that has run to date, it falls into one of two categories: first, advertising that describes specific measures in the economic action plan and how to access them, like the home renovation tax credit; or secondly, advertising that provides general information about the broad suite of measures contained in the plan and drives people to either the website or the 1-800 number where they can get the detailed information needed.
Our statistics indicate that the advertising is working to inform citizens about the plan and about where they can obtain detailed information. Whenever the advertising campaign runs, the volume of calls to the 1-800-O-CANADA number and the number of visits to the website increases noticeably.
Let me use the home renovation tax credit as an example. In research done this summer, 70% of Canadians said they were aware of the HRTC. Now, this is a pretty healthy number to begin with. However, a month later, in July, after the introduction of the advertisements, the number had increased to 81%, or 3 million more Canadians. Since February 2009, the 1-800-O-CANADA call centre has received more than 70,000 calls related to the economic action plan.
Now, on signage, it's been a long-standing practice for the Government of Canada to install signs on infrastructure projects so that people are able to differentiate projects funded for the federal government from other projects. Under the economic action plan, the government is following this long-standing practice.
In addition, the government is ensuring that all signage clearly labels the projects as part of the action plan. The signs also refer Canadians to the website, where they can get more information. These common features of the signage help support the objectives, as I've said, of accountability and uptake of the plan.
Clear identification with the economic action plan is needed if Canadians are to know that the individual projects are part of the plan, and clear information about where to get more detail about the plan is important to support uptake.
Finally, I would like to say that in executing the communications activities related to the economic action plan, PCO has given advice to the government to ensure conformity with the existing framework of rules. These rules are mainly included in the government's communications policy and related standards. I can confirm that the advertising, website, and signage described earlier comply with the requirements and processes set out by the Treasury Board.
Some new and innovative features of the website, like Google Maps or other advanced technologies, are features that were not envisioned when the policy was written. In those cases we have worked with Treasury Board Secretariat and others to ensure that we implement these new features in a way that respects the guidelines and the processes. Where policy has not kept pace with the technology, we continue to work with Treasury Board to address these issues.
I will now turn to my colleague, the Secretary of the Treasury Board, to speak in greater detail about the rules and policies governing communications.
Michelle.