Evidence of meeting #94 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was campaigns.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Secretary, Strategic Communications and Ministerial Affairs, Treasury Board Secretariat
For the year that just concluded, it was $65,000 plus HST, and the one that we just put in place is for $73,000.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay, so it's very little. Your ladies are doing a lot of work for little money.
Facebook and the other social media that the government is doing advertising on are generally very interactive, but they also have the ability to collect a lot of data from people who are interacting. I'm curious as to whether this data being collected is being stored, deleted immediately, or used for any other purposes. If it is being stored, how are you protecting it? We have seen a large number of data breaches in the government, so I'm just curious, if any of this information is stored, as to how it is being protected.
Assistant Secretary, Strategic Communications and Ministerial Affairs, Treasury Board Secretariat
Could I ask for clarification? Do you mean in advertising that is posted or paid for on Facebook or in Government of Canada Facebook accounts?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I mean either, anything being collected from citizens, and it's all government.
Deputy Minister, Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth, Privy Council Office
Any communications activity, whether it be government advertising or any type of process, would have to adhere to the privacy law. Everything we do is subject to that.
Conservative
Stéphane Lévesque Director General of Operations, Communications and Consultations, Privy Council Office
For advertising, the data is used so that we can get a better sense of where we're having the greatest impacts. We look at the number of clicks and the click-through rate, but we don't collect data and use it for anything—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You're using it solely for verification of how effective it is.
Director General of Operations, Communications and Consultations, Privy Council Office
It's for targeting and to see how effective it is.
Conservative
Director General of Operations, Communications and Consultations, Privy Council Office
There's nothing else.
Director General, Government Information Services Sector, Department of Public Works and Government Services
If we do POR, the private company must keep the information it is collecting.
Director General, Government Information Services Sector, Department of Public Works and Government Services
When we do public opinion research, the private company must keep the information, store it on a computer in Canada, and that information is not released in any way unless we have an ATIP request and we would release everything except the name.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
But it's not being used by the government for anything else.
Director General, Government Information Services Sector, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thank you.
I want to go back to measuring the effectiveness of the ads, which my colleague was asking about. I may have misheard, but it sounded as though you evaluate campaigns of $1 million and above, so for an $800,000 campaign, you're not measuring the effectiveness.
Deputy Minister, Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth, Privy Council Office
Everything $1 million and above is subject to an assets full mandatory evaluation, but for every campaign, we encourage all departments, whether they're running a small or a large campaign, to absolutely look at evaluation methods and results.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You're encouraging them. We've seen repeatedly that encouraging means it doesn't get done. If it's not deemed mandatory, it's generally not being done. So for an $800,000 ad done by another department, not specifically under your control, are we not measuring effectiveness?
Deputy Minister, Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth, Privy Council Office
No, I would say actually that there are other mechanisms by which we request that information. As we make decisions on the plan, having information on a previous campaign or information, results, and data on other methods of communications and their effectiveness will allow you to make a business case as to why you should be getting money in this fiscal year or why you should be using departmental versus central. Although it's mandatory for $1 million and up, it is absolutely essential for departments to provide that information as we make decisions.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
What metrics are you using to decide whether a campaign was effective? We've seen other government departments.... The Senate talked about infrastructure and its measure of success was spending the money, not actually getting anything done. What metrics are we using for advertising?
Deputy Minister, Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth, Privy Council Office
I would say that the digital tools are allowing us to do a lot of shareables through social media. We look at increases to the Canada.ca., the common platform—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Who's deciding what metrics we're using so we're not repeating the same ad that might not be successful?
Deputy Minister, Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth, Privy Council Office
PCO works with departments on what tools are available to them. We assist some more than others depending on the level of sophistication that they have, and then we share some of the lessons that we've learned from departments. We have the ability, because of where we sit, to share that information. Who is doing it and with what tools depends on the campaign. If it's a very local campaign, it could be measured by the number of applications you received on the job posting compared to the number last year when you didn't advertise.