'Canada's Economic Action Plan' signs painted in U.S.

A member of the B.C. legislature wants to know why the provincial government is paying a Washington state company to make road signs extolling Canadian stimulus spending.

The NDP's Katrine Conroy was so taken aback after seeing the signs in her Kootenay West riding she brought it up during question period in the legislature recently.

Aboriginal groups listed on Tory action plan say they were not consulted

Several aboriginal leaders who are listed as having provided input during the creation of the Conservative government’s action plan on violence against aboriginal women say they were not, in fact, consulted.

The discrepancies about the consultation process are surfacing just as native leaders prepare to sit down with federal cabinet ministers at an coming round table on Canada’s more than 1,181 murdered and missing aboriginal women.

‘Economic Action Plan’ ads to continue for the rest of our lives

Those “Economic Action Plan” ads we’ve all come to love over the last four years are going to continue until at least 2016, but probably forever.

The Harper government has called for bids from ad agencies willing to plan a campaign that could run for up to three years, with the purpose of strengthening “ongoing consumer confidence in the Canadian economy and the direction of the country.”

Economic Action Plan Ads: Harper Cites Pride To Defend $113 Million In Ads

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is justifying the more than $100 million his government has spent on economic advertising by pointing to Canadians' confidence in the economy.

Taxpayer-funded government ads are supposed to inform citizens about programs and services, according to Treasury Board guidelines.

But when the Conservatives recently put out a tender for a major new ad agency contract that could see the feel-good "economic action plan" brand continued until 2016, they highlighted consumer confidence and the direction of the country as key objectives.

Stephen Harper’s government spent over $50 million on ads in 2012, say records

OTTAWA — The federal government spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising in the last fiscal year led by major multimillion dollar marketing offensives from the Finance Department, and others touting their own policies, say new accounting records tabled Wednesday in the House of Commons.

The Public Accounts of Canada documents, tabled by Treasury Board president Tony Clement, show that the Finance Department, which has been running a long-standing advertising blitz touting the government’s economic policies, spent $15.25 million on advertising initiatives for the fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2013.

‘Economic Action Plan’ ads are wasteful Conservative propaganda

It’s bad enough that Ottawa’s annoying “Economic Action Plan” ads are thinly disguised Conservative propaganda. As it turns out, they’re not even effective at that.

What a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. Well over $100 million has been flushed away since the federal government began promoting its recession-fighting “action plan” on television, radio, in print and online in the wake of the 2009 budget. But the government’s own polling now shows this effort has left many Canadians tuned out, turned off and suspicious of Ottawa’s motives.

Economic Action Plan TV-Radio Ads Flopped, Poll Suggests

OTTAWA - Canadians tuned out another series of slick, taxpayer-funded Economic Action Plan ads that filled the airwaves in the spring, a new survey suggests.

Radio and TV spots appeared in late March to coincide with the release of the 2013 federal budget, but an internal poll of 2,009 adults indicates the action plan brand remains tarnished.

The Harris-Decima survey found 38 per cent were happy with the Conservative government's performance, the lowest level among the 10 such polls conducted since April 2009, when the first wave of action plan ads was released.

'Action plan' TV ads landing with a thud for many Canadians: internal survey

OTTAWA - Slick television ads this year for the Harper government's "economic action plan" appear to be inspiring a lot of, well, inaction.

A key measure of the ads' impact is whether viewers check out actionplan.gc.ca, the web portal created in 2009 to promote the catch-all brand.

But a survey of 2,003 adult Canadians completed in April identified just three people who actually visited the website.

Finance Department plans to spend $10-million on ‘Economic Action Plan’ budget ads this year

PARLIAMENT HILL—The Finance Department alone plans to spend $10-million on its own over the next 12 months on the federal government’s “Economic Action Plan” budget advertisements, which will bring total costs for the controversial ad campaign to a minimum of $104.8-million over four years.

A spokesman for the Finance Department confirmed to The Hill Times this week that a brief reference to $6-million for advertising in the department’s spending documents for the 2013-14 fiscal year is on top of $3.2-million finance officials recently revealed that was spent by the department over the past 12 months.

Flaherty defends spending on 'economic action plan' ads

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has defended the Conservative’s continued spending on the ‘economic action plan’ advertisements, saying that Canadians are entitled to know what their government is doing.

The Conservatives recently put out a tender for a major new ad agency contract that could see the ads continue until 2016.

We all pay for the government’s hockey ads

It’s Stanley Cup playoffs time again, and the playoffs mean hockey, yes, but also another barrage of Conservative Party advertising – oops, that should be “Government of Canada” advertising, paid for by you, the Canadian taxpayer.

When the playoffs end, one team will be champs; in the meantime, Canadians are taken for chumps. At your own expense, you will be sold the putative virtues of the government’s Economic Action Plan, which is central to Conservative Party political messaging.

‘Economic Action Plan’ ads to continue for the rest of our lives

Those “Economic Action Plan” ads we’ve all come to love over the last four years are going to continue until at least 2016, but probably forever.

The Harper government has called for bids from ad agencies willing to plan a campaign that could run for up to three years, with the purpose of strengthening “ongoing consumer confidence in the Canadian economy and the direction of the country.”

Budget 2013: Time for a real action plan, not another ad campaign

It's hard to get excited about Thursday's federal budget. All signs point to an "austerity" budget, even though that approach has failed so spectacularly wherever it has been tried. Austerity is one of those zombie ideas that cannot be killed, roaming rampantly across the pages and screens of the mainstream media. The 2012 federal budget already took a big step down the path of austerity with major public sector cuts, largely focused on direct federal program spending with cuts around 7 per cent (transfers to provinces and individuals, a large part of the federal budget, have largely been spared). About 19,000 federal public service jobs were cut in the 2012 budget, bringing the total to over 35,000 going back to previous rounds of cuts.

Tories’ ad blitz for Economic Action Plan cost taxpayers $21M in 2011-12

OTTAWA — The Harper government spent $21 million on major advertising campaigns under its Economic Action Plan brand in 2011-12.

The latest annual report on federal ad spending shows Ottawa shelled out $78.5 million that year telling Canadians about everything from the switch to digital TV and the War of 1812, to elder abuse and anti-drug messaging.

Most Canadians see Economic Action Plan ads as Tory advertising or a waste of money

OTTAWA — Four years after the Conservative government launched its first Economic Action Plan advertising, a new poll suggests that Canadians have become jaded to the continuing barrage of radio and TV commercials.

More than half of those surveyed this week reacted negatively to the ads, calling them either political advertising, a waste of taxpayers’ money, or “junk.”

When billboards are bad for democracy

OAKVILLE, ONT.—In case you haven’t noticed, disturbing signs abound which indicate the Conservative government is using tax dollars to undermine Canadian democracy.

And I really do mean “signs,” as in billboards.

The fact is, you can’t drive down any street these days without seeing a billboard plastered next to some construction project, boasting about how the new bridge or new parking garage or new whatever was made possible by the Conservative government’s “Economic Action Plan.”

Little-known ad agency wins the most federal contracts

The Conservative spending spree on government ads was very good to Al Albania.

The veteran ad man’s little-known Ottawa agency, Acart Communications, won more contracts than any other firm as Ottawa turned on the taps to promote its recessionary spending.

A Globe and Mail analysis of ad contracts for a 2½-year period beginning in the spring of 2009 reveals Acart beat out large international ad firms like KBS+P and Ogilvy Montreal.

Marketing Magazine recently published a list of Canada’s top-10 ad agencies for 2011, but editor-in-chief Tom Gierasimczuk had never heard of Acart when asked by The Globe. Neither had his colleagues. The magazine’s archives found three brief mentions of the firm. “It’s certainly not a prominent company,” Mr. Gierasimczuk said.

Yet the firm Mr. Albania, 66, set up nearly 40 years ago appears to have found the sweet spot for winning federal ad contracts in post-sponsorship Ottawa. Acart has produced Economic Action Plan ads for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada that highlight retraining programs and was also hired for campaigns focused on elder abuse and the H1N1 virus.

There is no evidence to suggest Acart owes its success to political favouritism. In the wake of the sponsorship scandal that saw ad dollars flow to Liberal-connected ad firms in Quebec, Ottawa approved new rules in 2003 aimed at ensuring contracts are won on merit. Mr. Albania, who has no obvious political connections, appears to have figured out what it takes to navigate the system created by the bureaucracy that grades bids on a 1,000-point scale. Acart secured a coveted spot in a pre-approved pool of ad firms that can submit bids and continues to win contracts with near-perfect scores.

Tories spent $2.8M to tout action plan

Government won't release info on how successful campaign was

The federal government spent $2.8 million on radio and print advertising last June to inform Canadians about the next phase of its Economic Action Plan. But according to research posted to a government website, only 12 per cent of us could recall any of the ads.

Does that mean the campaign was a failure? It's hard to tell, because the government is refusing to release the benchmarks it uses to assess the effectiveness of its taxpayer-funded advertising.

By policy, government departments must survey Canadians to evaluate the impact of advertising campaigns with media buys of more than $1 million. They must also post reports about all polls they commission on Library and Archives Canada's website within six months of completion.

But those reports no longer include any evaluation of an advertising campaign's success, or even a summary of the poll's findings. Instead, all that's posted are the survey's methodology and dozens of pages of tables recording responses to questions, in microscopic type.

The disappearance of the summary and evaluation material coincides with a move about two years ago by the Privy Council Office (PCO) to take over the analysis of the advertising survey instrument, called the Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool (ACET).