Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. This is extremely interesting.
There's one thing that's floating around in my mind. Are we chiefly concerned here with the nature of government or public advertising, or is it with the amount of the ad spend? That question begs a follow-up on my honourable colleague's concern about the money spend. Social media advertising is disrupting the whole traditional advertising spend—you know, dollars actually equal impact. It's a whole new world out there. There's a philosophical side to this conversation, which is exactly the kind of conversation I like to have, personally, and that's just something I want to throw out there.
On the money side, the $13.6 million, my understanding from reviewing my notes was that a lot of that was government departments. That also comes back to this question of how, when we say government ads, we immediately think government, executive, political-type advertising, whereas I think we're trying to get to a place where we're talking about public service information campaigns, which are in the public good.
I'd like to have your comments on both of those. If I can get to the external review question, I'll get to that as well, but it brings to mind the 1970s, when the concern of the day was subliminal advertising. Are we talking about that?
Maybe Mr. Rose could answer first, and then Professor Marland.