Government Operations Committee on March 10th, 2011

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Smart, what is your specific role?

And what is your role in all this, Ms. Lebel-Ducharme? If the department makes the decisions, what do you do?

[Monique Lebel-Ducharme]

My role is to ensure compliance with the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada and the Federal Identity Program Policy. I must ensure that ads—

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Unless I'm mistaken, when advertising material lands on your desk, your job is to verify that the three logos are present. If they are, you approve the material, you say “thank you very much”, and your job is done.

[Monique Lebel-Ducharme]

No. The policy dictates the procedure to follow for advertisements.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

However, the policy does not dictate content.

[Monique Lebel-Ducharme]

No, it does not.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

That is the answer I was looking for.

Earlier, Mr. Gourde alluded to the H1N1 virus. He mentioned that an advertising campaign had been conducted, that lives were saved and that everything was good. Do you know how much money was spent on this ad campaign? In all, $6.5 million. Do you know how much money was spent to promote the Conservatives' Economic Action Plan? The plan didn't save any lives, but a total of $34 million was spent on this initiative.

Do you see a difference there? Did I miss something? Could it be that the public's health matters less to the government than its action plan?

What do you think?

[Anne Marie Smart]

Do you want to take it?

[Mark Perlman]

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.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

For what year?

[Mark Perlman]

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

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Okay.

According to the figures we have, between $70 and $80 million have been spent overall this year. How much was spent on advertising during the year? That is what Ms. Coady wanted to know. You have some figures. You quoted figures for 2009-2010. Overall, how much was spent on advertising by all departments? Do you have those figures?

[Mark Perlman]

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.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

That means the amount of money initially set aside for advertising, namely $64.5 million, has more than doubled. In fact, I read on the website that a portion of this budget, $20 million in total, was spent on advertisements for CF recruitment purposes.

I'm having a hard time grasping certain things. First of all, I realize that you are not responsible for advertising. The department is responsible for advertising, for improving advertising, and it knows what it wants to include in that material.

Earlier, Ms. Ducharme, you mentioned logos. We've seen in some advertisements the letter C along with a maple leaf, which gave the impression that...

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Vincent

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

...the Conservative government was involved.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Vincent.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, you're time is up. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Holder.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Again, witnesses, I'd like to thank you for attending with your testimony today.

It's rather interesting. I've heard a series of questions and responses, and one of the things that came up fairly loudly in the first round of questioning had to do with dovetailing ads—that is, the apparent perception by some that Government of Canada ads and Conservative ads are within the same mix of commercials in between the content of shows. Sometimes I'm not sure whether it's the advertising we're watching or the shows, based on amounts of time. But the comment came back by a member opposite that this “dovetailing” can't be coincidental, but Mr. Perlman, you made it really clear, from what I heard, that there are guidelines in place in terms of the numbers of ads, the separation of ads. They cannot be in that same series or segment of ads. And in fact, did I hear you correctly that if that were ever to happen you would treat the Government of Canada ad, the cost of it, as if it never happened? Is that correct?

[Mark Perlman]

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.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Have you had to do that often?

[Mark Perlman]

Not very often.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Do you need to remind broadcast media of these guidelines on some regular basis? How do you do that, please?

[Louise de Jourdan]

The instructions are included in every media plan.