The Liberal government plans to spend $120 million on advertising to promote four key policy pillars that form the foundations of Prime Minister Paul Martin's election campaign. A new federal plan, obtained by CanWest News, calls for greater political control over advertising and outlines the government's key priorities that are identical to the themes outlined by Mr. Martin after he won the Liberal leadership and in a major campaign-style speech in Toronto yesterday. Opposition MPs charged yesterday that Mr. Martin is exploiting federal ad dollars to promote the Liberal party's agenda in the runup to an election that could be held as early as the spring. "You'd have to be an idiot not to see the connection between the themes of Paul Martin's re-election campaign and the themes stated in this advertising campaign. They are one and the same," said NDP MP Pat Martin. "Telling Canadians what services the federal government offers -- that should be what their advertising should be limited to and there is clearly crossover." The document states federal advertising will focus on promoting the 21st-century economy; social program foundations; Canada and the world; and public security -- all key planks in the Liberal election platform. Federal money will be specifically targeted to promote Mr. Martin's campaign agenda such as education, access to health care, improved social programs and municipal infrastructure, increased foreign aid, a strong military, improved Canada-U.S. relations and the battle against terrorism. The target audience of the government's ads? Families, the young, seniors, business and workers, disabled Canadians, aboriginals and international markets, according to the federal plan that will be submitted to cabinet on May 17. Pat Martin said he's surprised the Liberal government is engaged in such a massive advertising enterprise in the aftermath of the $250-million sponsorship scandal. "It takes a lot of balls to embark on another major advertising initiative when we haven't even finished from the mess left from the last one," the Manitoba New Democrat said. John Williams, the chairman of the public accounts committee, criticized the Liberals for spending $120 million "to tell Canadians how good they are for doing the things that they are supposed to do anyway." He also questioned why the government is planning major advertising campaigns on the basis of the prime minister's election platform when the government has not won a new mandate from the electorate. "Before they go off and spend $120 million on a whole bunch of new initiatives, one would have thought they would have either taken these things to Parliament or the country first," Mr. Williams said. The federal plan also calls for tailoring of advertising to "reflect regional sensitivities and priorities," but Mr. Williams said that would be a mistake, given $100 million of missing money that went to Liberal-friendly advertising firms to promote federalism in Quebec. "You can see where that got them with regional sensitivities. We should stay away from that and address all Canadians equally," he added. The federal plan said all departmental advertising initiatives must first be approved by cabinet's all-powerful operations committee and then go for submission to Treasury Board. Any unspent funds at the end of the year would be returned to the treasury.
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