Debates of April 27th, 2015

Opposition Motion—Government Advertising

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of the hon. member from my beautiful city of Edmonton and that he concentrated his remarks on the need to inform our veterans about services available to them.

However, we need to recall that the money the government has been spending on advertising has not solely been on informing veterans of their rights and opportunities to be better treated when they return from service. A lot of this money has been spent on simply advertising the Conservative Party under the guise of building Canada, economic action plan. What I found particularly reprehensible is the millions of dollars that have been spent on simply promoting one economic sector, one industrial sector, the oil and gas sector in the United States of America, and reportedly with very little result, having reviewed the usefulness and the deliverables on that advertising, yet not one dime has been spent on advertising the opportunities to diversify our economy, including promoting our burgeoning renewable energy and energy efficiency economy.

I would like the hon. member to respond to why they are not switching to diversify their ads instead of comparing themselves to the lowest common denominator.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to advertising and the oil and gas industry, that is the one industry, among many others but it is the primary industry that is giving us the quality of life we enjoy in Canada today, so yes, we are going to advertise. Yes, we are going to participate in the green economy. One might ask the people of Ontario how well that is working for them in terms of energy prices, which is not so well.

I concentrated on veterans, because as people know, that is one of my passions, but there are so many more things that we advertise. One on which I will actually be doing an S. O. 31 today, and I have just put out a press release and will try to do some more, is on the very fine city of Edmonton when it comes to the universal child care benefit. As we know there is a tremendous expansion and enhancement of those benefits for families. However, there are still 200,000 Canadian families who have not applied for those benefits. In Edmonton alone, there are 9,834 families, representing 16,617 children, who have not applied for those benefits. They need to apply by Friday, May 1, of this year. That is the kind of thing we also advertise.

We are not one-trick ponies. I know opposition members are fixated on the resource industy. That is just who they are, and that is fine. They are welcome to do that, but there are many more things that the government advertises well beyond veterans and well beyond families.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I must say I am disappointed in the speech that the member for Edmonton Centre delivered. He tries to make it seem as if the government is doing nothing wrong with taxpayers' dollars when nothing could be further from the truth. We are talking about three-quarters of a billion dollars that the government has spent, much of it absolutely wasteful, more about patting the Conservative government on the back than anything else. At a time when so many Canadians need support from the government, the Conservatives see fit to do nothing more than spend taxpayers' dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars every year, to pat themselves on the back. They are out of tune with Canadians.

My question for the member is very specific. Could he tell us how the Prime Minister can justify spending $7.5 million this May to promote the government's own budget, not the details of the budget, but to pat the government on the back for presenting a budget, which I must say is fundamentally flawed? Why is the government wasting 7.5 million taxpayer dollars to promote a bad budget?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the impassioned question from my hon. colleague. It is always entertaining to listen to him.

I will go back to a couple of things I mentioned in my remarks. When we talk about dollars spent in promoting government programs, budgets, and that sort of thing, it is the same as the Liberal Party did before. There is no difference.

He talked about the $750 million, which is over about nine and a half years. That equates to about the same amount a year that the Liberals spent between 2002 and 2006, which was about $271 million. If one does the math, it is pretty much the same thing.

His feigned outrage is always entertaining, I suppose, but it really masks the truth, that governments advertise for legitimate reasons. Certainly governments are going to promote their agendas. That is the right of every government. Taxpayers and voters will ultimately decide whether the government has done a good job or not.

With respect to the acceptance of the budget, although I do not have it with me, there is a long, long list of Canadians and organizations that say this budget is extremely praiseworthy and the work being done on behalf of Canadian families and all aspects of Canadian society.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was explaining earlier why the government advertises: to ensure that veterans are informed about the services available to them.

However, the best way to communicate with these people is to create a network, call them or send them personal letters. That would be cheaper and more effective. Worse still, the Conservatives spent over $5 million on an advertising campaign on the war, and yet they closed the offices that served veterans. The Conservatives have $4.3 million to spend on advertising, while our veterans are left with fewer services.

Is this advertising really for the veterans or is it for the Conservative Party? That is my question.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the premise of that question is absolutely 100% false. We are not advertising and promoting war. That is a ridiculous statement and the member should be ashamed of that.

With respect to benefits and services for veterans, they are absolutely not being reduced. They are absolutely increasing. There have been recent announcements of more case managers, more benefit adjudicators, the extension of the earnings loss benefit to lifetime, the increase in access to the permanent impairment allowance, and putting reservists on a level playing field with regular force members. We do reach out proactively with letters and contacts, but that is all part of the greater package, and advertising is part of that package. At times like during the Stanley Cup playoffs is exactly the right time to advertise, because that is exactly what veterans are watching. They are watching the playoffs. The member should enjoy that. She should watch a game and lighten up.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would accept and agree with many elements that the member just talked about concerning the defence forces and advertising; however, the concept within our motion comes down to having that third party as an arbiter to look at the type of advertising that may be misconstrued as something that is political. By way of example, several years ago the Conservatives painted the words “economic action plan” on a GO train. There was absolutely no information anywhere on that train that told people what programs they could avail themselves of. This is the type of thing that a committee would look at and say it was a bit much. It was just one billboard with three words that taxpayers are paying a lot for.

The motion is for the concept of having that outside body to say that they have crossed the line there.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are well educated when it comes to accessing the Internet and accessing information online. If people see the words “economic action plan” and they wonder what it is, they can google “economic action plan” and they will find all the things that cannot possibly be put on the side of a train. When a train goes by at whatever speed it travels, people are not going to read details. They are going to see the main message that will drive them to other methods of obtaining more information that Canadians are all too familiar with and very good at.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member.

At the height of the advertising campaign to commemorate the War of 1812, I would sometimes take the train, and the wine I was served was called '1812'. However, it was not really a wine from 1812; that was just a label. The government helped pay for that wine to be served on VIA Rail.

Can the member explain that?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, advertising the War of 1812 and advertising Canada's military history is part of what every Canadian government has done and frankly should do.

I may have missed the comment about the wine, but if the question was regarding advertising Niagara wine, that is okay too. The wine industry in Canada, in Niagara or British Columbia or other places now, is another important part of Canada's overall economy.

Any way we can get the word out about Canada's military history, about the contributions it has made to what we have today, about Canadian industry, especially things like the wine industry, which I particularly enjoy, is a good thing.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Newton—North Delta.

Obviously, in the past, both Liberal and Conservative governments have run publicly funded, partisan government advertising campaigns in order to promote their own partisan interests. The abuse, particularly by this government, is unbelievable. For example, the Conservative Party's 2011 election platform spoke of a Canada that is strong, free and proud of its history. The same keywords are used on the Conservative Party's website today. That is interesting.

What is more, these keywords are also used in government advertising. The publicly funded advertising campaign for Canada's 150th anniversary celebration uses the same keywords in its slogan: “Strong. Proud. Free.”.

The Conservatives have even refused to release the documents regarding the decision to use this partisan slogan in publicly funded ads. A reporter asked the Treasury Board to provide any information related to the decision to use the “Strong. Proud. Free.” slogan, and he was told that there was a 149-page document submitted to cabinet to justify its use. That is a lot of pages. Imagine how long it took government employees to write 149 pages just so that the government could use a partisan slogan in its advertising. It is unbelievable.

What is more, much of the advertising for the economic action plan does not provide any useful information about government services. In a poll to evaluate the 2012 advertising campaign, respondents described the ads as propaganda and a waste of money. Those are not our words. They are the words of ordinary Canadians. Only six of the 1,000 respondents said that they consulted the actionplan.gc.ca website for more information.

The Conservatives also wasted $2.5 million on advertising for a Canada job grant that did not even exist. Advertising Standards Canada's standards council found that the government campaign, which ran during the NHL playoffs, was misleading because it was announcing a program that had not yet been negotiated with the provinces. It is unbelievable.

Today, the Conservatives continue to waste money on promoting their campaign promises to adopt policies on income splitting, which benefits the wealthy, while these tax breaks do not even exist yet. The Conservatives are treating taxpayers with utter disrespect.

Ads for the economic action plan have cost taxpayers more than $113 million since 2009. That money could have been used to create an innovation tax credit, for example, to allow businesses to invest in machines and equipment and create jobs for Canadians. That is one of the NDP's good ideas.

In 2013, the Conservatives spent $16.5 million on advertising natural resource development, millions of dollars of which was spent abroad. They are not even spending that money here in Canada.

In March 2010, Conservative government officials met with representatives of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers; they agreed—it is lobbying, really—on an intense communication strategy. In one year, that money could have paid for 11,000 home renovations under the eco-energy retrofit program to help Canadians reduce their heating bills. Imagine that.

The Conservatives' hypocrisy never ceases to amaze us.

Since 2009, they have spent more than $40 million of taxpayers' money on advertising concerning tax relief for Canadians. They could have used that money to hold a national inquiry to obtain justice for missing and murdered aboriginal women. That would have been a good idea. Advertising for Canada's 150th anniversary will cost $12 million two years in advance of the celebrations in 2017. That money could have been used to keep the Kitsilano coast guard base open for 15 more years.

There is definitely a need for some of the government's advertising, such as advertising for government services for new Canadians. However, for the past few years, the government has been spending 10 times more on advertising for the economic action plan than on ads for government services for new Canadians. We have a duty to ensure that this advertising is not partisan.

As for 2014, while Veterans Affairs Canada was closing its regional offices and depriving veterans who were suffering of services they were entitled to, the government spent $4.3 million on advertising. Furthermore, poll results show that the advertising was not even effective. The government would have been better off investing this money in keeping the regional Veterans Affairs offices open.

Moreover, the Conservatives spent more than $5 million on an advertising campaign for the War of 1812. That $5 million could have been spent on hiring dozens of rail inspectors to help prevent another disaster like Lac-Mégantic.

The Conservatives spent $1.5 million on advertising the apprenticeship program even before the program officially existed, thus blurring the line between partisan advertising and advertising for government services that actually exist. It is understandable that Canadians do not know whether or not a program exists and how to access it. The Conservatives did nothing to inform Canadians about the changes to employment insurance.

It is quite impressive when you look at the numbers. This government spent $86 million on advertising in 2006, $84 million in 2007, $79 million in 2008, $36 million in 2009, $83 million in 2010, $78 million in 2011, $69 million in 2012 and $75 million in 2013. We do not yet have the figures for 2014, but since it was a pre-election year, it would not surprise me to see that the government spent even more than it did in 2013. We will see.

I have to wonder why the government continues to spend money on advertising campaigns, when its own internal assessments indicate that Canadians consider these ads to be a waste. How can the government justify these expenses when it is shutting down service offices? If these campaigns are as useful and as non-partisan as the government claims, why is it so afraid of submitting these expenses to a third party review?

Why did the Conservatives put money into this advertising, even though their own officials were telling them that the economic action plan ads violated Treasury Board rules? I also have to wonder why they do not want to release the documents related to the “Strong. Proud. Free.” slogan. The answer is simple: they have something to hide.

Let us not kid ourselves, though. The Liberals were no different. If that were not the case, they would not be trying to improve their image with this motion. That is what this is all about. I would like the Canadians watching us to know that there was abuse, and I am not just talking about the sponsorship scandal. In fact, previous Liberal governments used taxpayer money to finance partisan advertisements.

For example, the Chrétien government used $2 million in public funds to promote the need for health system reform. It too chose to do that during the hockey playoffs, just like the current government.

If that party and its member are really serious about wanting to do something to address this problem, may I suggest they look at the Australian model, which has real teeth and truly respects taxpayers' money.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate many of the comments made by the member. However, I would reinforce the very important principle that my colleague has raised in a question, which is having a third-party process that would allow for a sense of independence and fair play in ensuring the tax dollars we are using to finance public advertising is done in the best interest of Canadians.

In other words, at times we need to recognize that there is a line that needs to be drawn when an ad does more for political opportunists for re-election opportunities versus passing on and disseminating information that is important to Canadians. One of the best ways to deal with that issue, as has been suggested in the motion, is to have a third party review government publicly-financed advertising. Would the member not agree?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I guess anything done is a good thing, but there is more that could be done than what is proposed in the motion.

Actually, the federal government of Australia implemented the solution that the member for Ottawa South has put forward, but it failed. The Australians then created an independent communications committee responsible for reviewing government advertising. That is a real solution. If we really want to do something, I suggest we do something like that.

My hon. colleague mentioned that it is all about electioneering. It is very clear that the Liberals are using this motion to try to improve their image, but that is just not going to happen. Canadians will remember.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

He made it very clear that all of the money the government is currently spending on partisan advertising could have been spent on funds that would actually help Canadians meet their needs. Advertising dollars could be used to explain programs that actually exist, but this government is spending more money on programs that do not yet exist and on partisan advertising. My colleague spent a lot of time talking about a slogan that, strangely enough, is being used by the Conservative Party to explain other programs that are not partisan. This is all really confusing.

What really worries me today is that this motion was moved by a party that has a history of spending taxpayers' money on partisan advertising. This is what the then auditor general said:

Between 1998-99 and 2002, the federal government [which was a Liberal government] ran more than 2,200 advertising activities with contracts valued at about $793 million, making it one of the larger advertisers in the country.

It was the Liberals who did that. For decades now, we have gone from one government to another that both use the same tactics: taking taxpayers' money to pay for partisan advertising. I find it absurd that that party is the one proposing these changes today.

What does my colleague think of the fact that it is the Liberals, who also used partisan advertising, who are proposing this motion?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, blue or red, it is all the same. Those are the old parties, and they have been in power too long.

It is time to replace them with parliamentarians and a government that respect taxpayers' money and the opinions of Canadians, and that believe in informing Canadians about changes to their programs and services. That is what government advertising should used for: to inform people.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of this motion. We have heard a lot about the advertising of government programs that do not even exist, and I think it is ironic when we get bills like this brought forward. However, I always say it is better late than never.

It pleases me that the Liberal Party has brought this bill forward. In the past, both the Liberal and Conservative governments have been criticized very heavily for using publicly funded government advertising campaigns to further their own partisan interests. That is not news, and I am not going to go into too much of the history around that. When the Liberals were in government, they acted just like the Conservatives.

It is a bit strange sitting here, having the Conservatives say that they only kind of did what the Liberals did. What matters is that it is the public's hard-earned tax dollars that are being used for partisan advertising. Taxpayers do not mind when their hard-earned tax dollars are used to pay for programs. They do not mind when they are used to promote something that is good for all Canadians. What they do mind is when it is just purely advertising in order to promote a particular party.

We all remember the sponsorship scandal. I was not an MP at the time, but I can tell the House that it was a big topic of conversation. In my social studies class, it was a major topic of discussion for a good few weeks.

It is time in Canada that we elect a government and a leader who have the experience and the principles, as well as what it takes to stop all of these scandals and mismanagement left behind by the Liberals, and now by the Conservatives. It is time for a principled government that will bring real change to Ottawa and get rid of advertising that is not necessary.

I have sat in the House today and listened to some of my colleagues from across the aisle, and I heard what a wonderful job they have been doing with Veterans Affairs. All of this advertising is to promote the programs they have. What I have found ironic is that they had to put them on during the hockey games because every veteran is out there watching hockey. I have big news for everyone: not everybody watches hockey. I know that might be sacrilegious and that some people might get upset at that, but there are many people who do not watch, especially many who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and those who are coping with having left the battlefield and readjusting to civilian life.

If we want to communicate with the veterans, surely we know who they are. Surely one way to communicate with them is directly. That would actually get to every veteran in a real way, instead of just throwing out the fairy dust and hoping that some of it lands in the right places.

Since I have been in the House, I have watched advertising for programs that do not even exist. I was the critic for employment and social development, as I am now, when the government was advertising the Canada job grant. The government had not negotiated a single agreement with any province, but we spent millions of dollars advertising a program that did not exist. To me, that is asinine and a waste of taxpayers' money.

Canadians work hard to earn their paycheques. They pay taxes, which they do not mind, if they know that their taxes are being well used.

However, the taxpayers I talk with do not want to have their hard-earned money used to promote a particular party or for partisan advertising, especially to promote things that do not exist. We have already begun to see some of the advertising around income splitting. As far as I know, income splitting has not yet been passed by this Parliament. We know it is an idea the government has in its budget, but we have not finished debate on the budget. It has to go through the cycles of parliamentary legislation, and then it has to come back here to be voted upon.

Instead of dealing with real issues and spending money where it is needed, the government would rather spend money on advertising income splitting—the new income splitting, by the way—that would only benefit about 15% of the population, not those who need it the most.

Constituents and other Canadians I have talked with coast to coast to coast tell me that they have been waiting years to hear about their appeals to the Social Security Tribunal. Some of these people are terminally ill and still waiting to have their appeals heard. Surely some of this money would have been better spent on hiring extra people, if that is what is needed, in order to process the appeals in a timely manner.

I am not against all advertising. I think there are some things that governments do have to advertise in a bigger way, on a larger scale. I heard another colleague mention tourism today. We live in a beautiful country. Of course, we should be promoting our country. I think it is wonderful to encourage people to come here, but also to encourage people within Canada to explore Canada as well.

However, what I find hard is why we have to spend millions of dollars promoting the oil industry in the U.S. when the oil industry makes billions of dollars in profit. Surely it is the job of the oil companies to promote themselves. Why would we take hard-earned money from Canadians who are working for $10, $12, $14 an hour, having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet, and use it to promote the oil companies in the U.S.? The oil companies make huge profits. That is called the government paying off its friends, and I think that is unconscionable when Canadians are hurting.

Let us talk about something else that the government should be highlighting: Campaign 2000. That was the year when Parliament unanimously agreed to take immediate action to end child poverty. Eradication of poverty or the proliferation of child poverty is still very real, whether it is in the north, in B.C., in the centre, or on the east coast. Think of the three-quarters of a billion dollars that has been spent on advertising. Some of that could have been used to address child poverty. When it comes to child poverty, we have a government that is very fond of supporting our motions to end child poverty and agreeing they are a good thing. Then, when we get a budget, we do not see many resources targeted in that area specifically. What we see sometimes are policies that would grow the gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots.

I absolutely agree that we need to get this partisan advertising under control and that we need an independent body to review how it is done. It is time for the Conservative government to stop abusing the tax dollars of hard-working Canadians to promote itself for re-election.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question starts with a comment about the government's spending plans that occurred back in November 2014. One of the topics in the video advertisement was about income splitting and changes to benefits that still have not been legislated in this House.

My concern in particular is that at the end of this advertisement there has to be a thing that says “measures subject to parliamentary approval”. The problem is that these advertisements appeared as a kind of gateway to reading online newspaper articles. If an individual reads it on an ordinary computer screen, or even more so on a mobile screen, there is no way one could read the tiny font that appears for a couple of seconds saying “measures subject to parliamentary approval”.

I am wondering if my colleague has seen these ads and she could comment on the appropriateness of concealing the idea that these measures have not yet gone through Parliament.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed working with my colleague on a number of issues. He always asks thoughtful questions.

I think this is a prime example of a government, even when it is found guilty by the courts and is reprimanded, wanting to circumvent. Instead of saying that they are not supposed to be doing this, the Conservatives came up with the idea of having a tiny little tag flash on the screen which nobody will have the time to read, or it is so tiny that people, especially in my age group, cannot read it. They carry on with doing exactly what they were doing before.

It is a flagrant disregard for common-sense interpretation when they have been found guilty, in order to carry on misusing the tax dollars of hard-working Canadians.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with some of the comments about why the Canadian government is spending public funds to promote the oil industry in the United States. It is not as though it is a hardship case. It is a multi-billion dollar profit centre. We are spending money on ads for them, but in Canada as well, targeted to us in British Columbia.

I am sure my friend from Newton—North Delta will be able to immediately recall the ad for how fabulous the environmental protection will be with supertankers loaded with dilbit, which British Columbians do not want, and the great announcement from the Canadian government that these supertankers will now have to have double hulls, as though we can thank the current administration for this innovation. Double-hulled oil tankers have been required under international law since 1978. What we have had in British Columbia to protect our coastline is a moratorium on supertanker traffic on the north coast since 1972, which the current administration just imagined away. It is as if we never had a moratorium at all.

I wonder if my friend would comment on what looked like Enbridge ads, but were actually being paid for by our tax dollars.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question that is targeted specifically to our beautiful British Columbia's pristine coastline.

I have had the pleasure of travelling all over B.C., and up and down that beautiful coastline. For British Columbians, there is nothing more important than protecting our coastline and our waterways.

That moratorium was there for a reason. The Canadian government now making sure that our tankers are up to international standard is not a cause to celebrate when maybe they should have had double hulls all along. However, what is disturbing is that once again the government is very much engaged in partisan advertising, supporting the oil companies and the pipelines.

What shocked me more than anything was that when we had the oil spill in Vancouver during that perfectly still day and a lot of damage was done, the company contracted out for the cleanup was Kinder Morgan. That is bizarre.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Labrador.

I am pleased to rise in support of the Liberal motion. We are calling upon the government to submit its advertising proposals to a dispassionate third party to ensure the advertisements are non-partisan. Under the Conservative government, experience has shown that this measure is urgently required. As has been pointed out, it has spent three-quarters of a billion dollars no less on largely partisan advertising since coming into power. We see this all the time if we watch the playoffs and other broadcasts. It is hard to avoid advertisements that are partisan Conservative ads relating to the economic action plan and other measures of this kind.

There are two principal areas on which I would like to focus.

The first is that as a government, it is sometimes nice to have free reign over the advertising it can do because then it can bend it to the partisan and help its own cause a little. However, the Ontario government, under the leadership of then premier Dalton McGuinty, took the lead on this. Even though for those reasons it might have been to the disadvantage of the Liberals, they proposed a law, which has been in place for some years now, with respect to a third party system that limited their ability to advertise to what was deemed non-partisan by this third party. Therefore, it is our view that it is high time that the federal government emulate what Dalton McGuinty did for Ontario and bring forward such an approach, even though it might limit its own freedom of action, just as it limited the freedom of action of the McGuinty government.

My colleague, the member for Ottawa South, has proposed a private member's bill, which would do just that, set out a third party that would have the ultimate say on what advertising was permitted and what advertising was not permitted.

We in the Liberal Party support this measure. Even though we may well become the next government, we are happy to be limited in our ability to do partisan advertising, just as we recognize the Conservatives should also be so limited. We should all agree that this is the right thing to do whether we are or are not the government. It is simply wrong to use taxpayer money to advance one's partisan interest through advertising. If the Liberal government in Ontario could do that, then the Conservative government in Ottawa should also do that. We, as the federal Liberal Party, are willing to do it even though it might cost us down the road should we become the government.

If we look at today's polls. it is roughly fifty-fifty as to whether the Conservatives or the Liberals will be the next government. Therefore, each of us should pass such legislation and agree to such a rule, even though going forward there is perhaps a 50% chance that one of us would be limited in our freedom of action, but at the same time doing what is right from the point of view of taxpayer funding.

The second issue I would like to address is that all this government advertising apparently does not work, according to the government's own findings.

They do not work.

Apparently, Canadians are not significantly influenced by all these Conservative ads.

The best example of that is something we would think no Canadian in the country could have escaped hearing about in the last several years, which is Canada's economic action plan. The government is more concerned about the signs than the action. No matter where we go, we cannot help seeing these things. It does not matter what TV or radio station we turn on, we cannot help hearing about these things. This is one of the prime examples of the government using taxpayer money for partisan advertising, which should be stopped.

The bad news for the government is that it does not work. According to polls commissioned by the government, when Canadians were asked if they had heard of Canada's economic action plan, one would have thought 100% would have said yes. In the Ottawa bubble, it is impossible not to have heard of it. I would have thought a high proportion of Canadians would have heard of it, 99% or around there. However, the proportion saying no, that they had never heard of Canada's economic action plan, was 41% in 2010.

Then the government did way more adverting, year after year. How did that number progress? Maybe it went from 41% to 81%? No. In 2011, it was 40%. In 2012, it was 42.6%. In 2013, it dipped down to 37%. Then it was 38%. Therefore, it is within the rounding error. However, 40% of Canadians have never heard of the economic action plan. Difficult as it is for parliamentarians to believe it, that is a fact.

The point is not only is the advertising a waste of taxpayer money for partisan purposes, but it does not even work very well. With all of this advertising, day in and day out, about the economic action plan, 40% of Canadians still do not have a clue what it is.

It is the wrong thing to do, and it does not work. Those are two good reasons for the government to stop it.

I have one more illustration of why it does not work. This is a survey. Again, it was a government appointed survey. I think these surveys were brought in by the Liberal government, and they have continued to this day. This is a survey about the home renovation tax credit conducted in 2009. The question was, “Did you do anything as a result of seeing or hearing this advertising about the home renovation tax credit?” The percentage of people who said that they did not do anything as a result of this advertising was 74%.

The major point is that partisan advertising is the wrong thing to do. We should put in place a legislative mechanism, as Ontario has done and as my colleague from Ottawa South has introduced in the House. We in the Liberal Party, should we become government, would be perfectly happy and content to be constrained by such legislation. We think this should similarly constrain the Conservative government of today. It should act even before this law is proclaimed, and go to a third party to limit its advertising to items being non-partisan.

We think there is a strong case for this, and we are putting our money where our mouth is and supporting this. As a by-product, I would also make the point that for all this waste of taxpayer money by government advertising, it does not even seem to work very well.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite surprised to hear this kind of proposal for a review from the Liberals, especially on a special day like today, because the Liberals have a history of problems with sponsorship, as everyone recalls. This is a little like a criminal suggesting a new law to prevent crime. It is quite strange.

Would the Liberal member agree that is it rather ironic that they are criticizing the government, considering that his party was responsible for the sponsorship scandal?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question on past events that occurred 10 or 12 years ago.

Nonetheless, there is something else that happened much more recently and that is the fact that a large number of NDP members did not pay what they owe the government. They used taxpayers' money to pay for partisan expenses. They broke the rules and they still have not paid what they owe to taxpayers.

The NDP is no longer the master of virtue vis-à-vis every other party in the House. The NDP should pay its own bills before it starts preaching to the rest of us.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments put forward by my colleague from Markham—Unionville. I want to share with him a sense of warning. If the boys in short pants hear they are only reaching 40% of the Canadian electorate with their advertising, they are liable to shovel a little more at it. The rationale would be that the Conservatives are not spending enough.

There is one thing he did not mention, and most people who contact my office talk about this topic. They are most annoyed with the fact that the government, under the current Minister of Public Works, who was with Human Resources and Skills Development at the time, to much fanfare, announced the Canada jobs grant. The government had not talked to the provinces about it. There had been nothing in place, but it took out $3.5 million worth of advertising on the program. She got shuffled along and a new Minister of Employment and Skills Development. took over. He had to sit down and cobble together some kind of an agreement.

In the meantime, $3.5 million were spent on a program that did not exist. It was a ghost program. Has the member heard from his constituents about this colossal waste of taxpayer money on a program that did not exist?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is certainly right about what he calls the boys and girls in short pants. There is a risk of telling them their spending is ineffective. What I mean is that they should spend less, but they might take the opposite point of view that if it does not work at $750 million, maybe they need to spend a few billion more of taxpayer money to try to make it do the trick.

I am aware of it, although I have not heard from constituents about the case he raises. There are many cases where the government advertises before a program is legal, before it passes the House, before it has spoken to its provincial counterparts. It advertises programs that have not yet been passed into law.

My colleague raises a very good point, but it is just the tip of the iceberg on so many things the Conservatives do. They make huge budget announcements, not in the House. The list goes on and on of the inappropriate behaviour to which they subject themselves. However, the main point today is to get this rule passed so the kind of abuse my colleague has talked about will not happen in the future.