Thank you.
As you know, Canada's Economic Action Plan was created to react to a global economic crisis. The June 2011 budget continued to adapt the action plan, and the government adopted an integrated and coordinated communications plan. The purpose in this case was to better inform Canadians about the benefits and services provided by the government and about the economic aspects in the budget. So the $1 million is the continuation of this integrated and coordinated communications plan intended to help Canadians know about the benefits contained in the budget. It's an adaptation, and its title refers to that of the budget. So it is…
the next phase of Canada's economic action plan. The communications activities are to coordinate and integrate in a continuation of the economic action plan.
As for the branding exercise, it is an exercise intended to verify whether adjusting our branding will make it possible to keep Canadians better informed.
Every federal government poster or statement advertisement has what's called the Canada word mark, according to the federal identity program: that little “Canada” word with the flag. Studies over the last several years have indicated that Canadians' awareness of and recall levels for advertising has remained relatively flat. One of the ways of delivering value for taxpayers' dollars is to try to ensure that when the government is buying advertising, Canadians are getting the information and are understanding that the information comes from the federal government and that it's talking to them about benefits they can get from the federal government.
This amount of money is being used to try to examine whether there are ways of enhancing that recognition so that Canadians will understand more easily the benefits that are being offered to them and will get greater access to them. It is an exercise to try to determine whether there are ways through advertising to make better use of Canadians' dollars.