Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope for his interest in the 2017 budget cover. This gives me an important opportunity to address some of the misconceptions regarding the production costs for budget 2017, including for the book's cover. Once I have cleared things up, I believe the hon. member will see that his question paints a less than full picture of how our government has approached the presentation of this historic document.
First, it is important to note that our government has actually succeeded in keeping costs low in the presentation of our budgets, as compared to the previous government, and I have some very interesting numbers for the member at the end of my presentation. That is because, unlike the previous government, we made the conscious decision not to roll out major advertising campaigns to publicize the presentation of our budgets. The result is that we have spent less than half of what the honourable opposition spent on the promotion and production of its budgets under the Harper Conservatives.
I find it regretful that the hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope has conspicuously omitted our substantive savings in advertising from his question. Unlike the previous government, we wanted Canadians to see the facts presented inside the budget and understand what they mean for them. Advertising around our budget was geared towards pointing Canadians to these facts.
Rather than spending taxpayers' money on multi-million dollar television campaigns, we used more cost-effective digital creative material as the foundation of our outreach to Canadians.
The cost specified in his question included all of this, along with the budget cover. In fact, it included the creative content for all communications activities, marketing, and promotional initiatives related to budget 2017. In addition to the cover, the advertising elements covered by this figure included the cost of production of videos and various social and digital media initiatives, all of which pointed Canadians to the full details of our long-term plan to create jobs and strengthen the middle class.
In the absence of a multi-million dollar television advertising campaign, this fresh, new digital creative material continues to be a key part of outreach to Canadians and how the government informs them about changes that could have a major impact on the way they make decisions. In addition to the budget cover, photos were used for the budget website, budget documents, social and digital media, and a paid Internet campaign. Moreover, the finance department followed standard Government of Canada procurement contracting policies for this work throughout, including TBS guidelines.
The bottom line is that we are not spending the huge amounts of money the opposition spent on advertising, at the expense of Canadians, back when they were in government. We are spending less than half that.
I will conclude with a few numbers. Let us look at years past. Budget 2017 cost $157,000. Budget 2016 cost $183,000. If we look at 2014-15, back when the opposition was in government, for two budgets it was $1,064,000. In 2013-14, for one budget, it was $419,004. In 2012-13, again for one budget, it was $552,500. In 2011-12, $1,023,000 was spent on budget advertising by the previous government.
As the members have observed, over the course of the last two years, the last two budgets, we have spent half of what the previous Conservative government spent in promoting the budget. We have done it in a more efficient manner through the initiatives I have just mentioned.