Industry Canada and Conservative Government

Canada campaign: In total, the Conservative government has now committed $65 million to advertising this fiscal year, which ends March 31, according to Huffington Post Canada. The total would be higher but Industry Canada appears to have thought better of spending $6.5 million earmarked for a "consumer initiatives" campaign, returning the money to the overall ad envelope to be used elsewhere. The ad spending splurge comes amid large campaigns promoting Conservative family tax measures that have not yet been approved by Parliament and aggressive Defence department recruitment ads that dovetail with current Conservative anti-terrorism messaging. The latest allotments include $3.5 million to the Finance department, bringing its yearly total to $11 million. The Heritage department, which had already spent $7.2 million on ads touting the country 150th birthday in 2017, receives another $1.5 million to prepare a fresh Canada 150 ad campaign that will air this summer. A spokeswoman said in an email response that "additional funding was allocated to the department of Finance to inform Canadians about economic action plan measures and benefits." Liberal finance critic Scott Brison groused that with the 2015 federal budget delayed until at least April amid plunging oil prices, the government priorities are skewed. "With the Canadian economy flatlined, Canadians need action, not more 'action plan' ads," Brison said in a telephone interview. "They're spending more time writing ads than they are writing a budget." National Defence, meanwhile, gets $3 million for those dramatic recruiting ads currently blanketing the sports networks, while Citizenship and Immigration has been given another $3 million on top of the $3 million it has already spent to promote services to new Canadians. "We respect taxpayers in our advertising decisions and we expect to only spend approximately $500,000 out of the $3M," Citizenship spokeswoman Nancy Caron said in an email. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.