Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to pursue further the question I raised in the House on November 29 on a Friday afternoon when things are very exciting around here.
The question I asked had to do with the amount of money that the government spent on advertising at the Grey Cup. I proposed that the government should not be wasting a bunch of money advertising itself since it is not likely to go out of business. The government is wasting a lot of money on advertising, which more properly should be spent on health care.
The Minister of Public Works and Government Services, in his response to me, said that he would be happy to provide the details with respect to this matter in response to an Order Paper question, so of course that is what I did. I am expecting to have an answer to this question with respect to how much money was spent on advertising at the Grey Cup and also some defence of the government on its wasteful spending on advertising.
This question actually arose because a constituent of mine raised it with great irateness and, I would venture to say, even a small degree of anger. He went to the game, where someone, on behalf of the government, was handing out little knick-knacks with Canada put on them. That is great and we are all happy to be Canadians, but as I said in my question on November 29, we are reminded that we are Canadians every time we look at the deductions on our pay stubs. We do not need to remind ourselves that we are Canadians.
We recognize that the government has to spend a certain amount of money in advertising some of its programs and so on, but generally the advertising done at sporting events does not advertise any specific program. It is just simply a “feel good” type of advertising, which I think has limited value.
One of the things we are really concerned about is the huge waste. Of course the minister made reference to the fact that in this particular instance the government did not use any advertising agencies, that it was done internally. I guess once in a while we need to give the government grudging applause for some of the measures it is taking. The fact that there was not a Liberal-friendly firm getting a cut out of this is at least a move in the right direction, but still, the money is spent excessively.
Even despite the fact that the government is saying that it is reducing its sponsorship programs and its advertising, we found out that Groupe Everest, for example, is still getting a lot of money. It still gets $3.5 million per year in order to engage in advertising. There is some indication, in a secret report that the government has, that it charged in some instances up to 43% commission on the advertising it handles, which is a very high rate of commission.
We find the government advertising in the Attractions Canada portfolio, $500,000 worth in the VIA magazine. It does not advertise a specific program, it just says, “Hey, feel good, we're Canadians”. There is subliminal advertising there that says, “Hey, isn't it great to be a Liberal”. We object to that. We think that ought not to be done.
With that, I eagerly await the response from the parliamentary secretary.