By Mike De Souza, Canwest News ServiceFebruary 18, 2010. From the Montreal Gazette
OTTAWA — The Harper government’s infrastructure plan is more about marketing and branding than it is about creating jobs and improving the economy, Liberal infrastructure critic Gerard Kennedy said Thursday in response to newly released federal documents.
The documents — part of a package of briefing notes prepared for Transport Minister John Baird after the 2008 election and obtained by Canwest News Service under access-to-information legislation — said the government could use its multi-billion dollar “Building Canada” plan for infrastructure to raise the visibility of local ministers and MPs and to stress the economic benefits of the spending during the global recession.
Kennedy said the problem was that the government used its spending program to only promote Conservative party politicians.
“One thing people should know is that those were not opposition MPs,” said Kennedy in an interview. “They were prohibited from being on the stage (during government announcements) in most parts of the country and so people should realize that this isn’t promotion of government activity, it’s promotion of party activity.”
Baird said Wednesday that the government had a responsibility to invest in core infrastructure and inform Canadians about its plan.
But Kennedy said Thursday it appeared as though a significant amount of money was spent on marketing, even though a lot of money in the infrastructure budget has not yet been spent.
“The money didn’t get out, the jobs didn’t get created — but the branding sure took place,” said Kennedy. “This little memo is just a marker of a huge branding program.”
The documents also highlighted a significant marketing effort that included newspaper advertising and the distribution of thousands of brochures and booklets. A spokesman for Baird said that the government had spent about $140,000 on advertising and marketing from 2007 to 2009, and more than $8 million in 2009-2010 to promote the economic action plan, with a campaign that was led by Infrastructure Canada along with 17 other federal departments and agencies.
Other government departments have also invested money for similar campaigns to promote federal economic policies.
But one public-policy expert with experience in senior government positions said that there was nothing unusual about bureaucrats proposing a marketing strategy to promote federal programs.
“This kind of approach started in the 1970s; it seems to be (continuing) and frankly there’s nothing new here,” said Donald Savoie, a Canada Research Chair in public administration and governance at the Universite de Moncton.
“It doesn’t matter who is in power. Visibility is the lifeblood of politics.”
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