Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak today on the Liberal motion on government advertising from my colleague, the member for Ottawa South.

The Conservative government has proven time and time again that it has absolutely no shame in spending tax dollars on wasteful, ineffective and highly partisan advertising. The Conservatives have spent more than $750 million on government advertising. In fact, just today we have learned of new plans by the Conservative government to spend even more tax dollars on wasteful ads.

According to a new media report, not only is Finance Canada spending another $7.5 million on radio and television ads for April and May, but the Canada Revenue Agency has a multimillion dollar advertising campaign of its own right now. I will quote from the report today:

The Canada Revenue Agency is spending $6-million on a concentrated TV bulk buy this month that includes pricey NHL playoff spots in what internal government documents describe as a continuation of an existing campaign that’s been running all winter.

Under the Conservatives, the CRA has seen massive cuts that have caused service standards to plummet and Canadians to be left frustrated. The Conservatives have in fact closed all of the CRA service counters and allowed the backlog of complaints to rise to more than 35,000. Even CRA's internal audit shows that its telephone support lines for small businesses go largely unanswered or are giving out erroneous information. Despite these ongoing problems, the Conservatives have still managed to find millions of dollars to spend on TV ads this month, the very month that Canadians are most likely to need CRA's help and be left wanting more.

As the motion states, a great deal of these ads have been partisan in nature and have served very little in terms of real public interest. This abuse of tax dollars is an affront to Canadians who work hard and expect their government to treat their money with respect.

To clean up this mess, we need greater checks and balances in place. The government should be required to submit its advertising to a third-party review process to ensure that the ads are appropriate, proportional and a sensible use of public funds.

Canadians are angry, and rightly so. They have a government that is asking everyone to tighten their belts, while the government spends hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on self-promotion ads.

I would like to give just a few examples of wasteful Conservative advertising.

In May 2013, the Conservative government ran an ad during the Stanley Cup playoffs advertising the Canada jobs grants. The Advertising Standards Council of Canada declared that the ad was misleading and was a breach of the Canadian code of advertising standards because it omitted relevant information. It also neglected to mention that the program did not even exist. In fact, the government had not engaged the provinces on an area of shared jurisdiction.

The Conservative government has already spent nearly $12 million on ads to promote Canada's 150th birthday, an event that will not take place for another two years. The Conservatives also spent tens of millions of dollars promoting the Canada economic action plan three years after the program actually ended.

The Conservatives have also frequently purchased really expensive ads during the NHL playoffs, the Super Bowl and the Oscars, and when asked to explain, they refuse to reveal any details to Canadians about the cost. Canadians are right to wonder about the priorities of the Prime Minister and his Conservatives.

It comes down to priorities. The Conservatives have lost touch with what really matters to Canadian families. While the Conservatives spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars on partisan advertising, they are also shortchanging our veterans. They shut down nine veteran service centres across Canada. They have spent as much advertising veteran services, which the Auditor General says are not actually meeting the needs of the veteran community, as it costs to maintain these nine offices, which actually were serving veterans.

The Conservatives have also chosen economic action plan ads over measures that would actually create jobs. There are still almost 160,000 fewer jobs for young Canadians compared to 2008, before the downturn.

Students across Canada are struggling to find summer jobs that can help pay for their school. Instead of helping students out, the Conservative government has cut the number of jobs created by the Canada summer jobs program by more than half.

However, a single ad during the NHL playoffs could actually pay for more than 30 student jobs in the Canada summer jobs program. Instead of creating summer jobs for students who need the work to pay for their schooling, the government is instead wasting that money on partisan ads in the NHL playoffs.

It is an issue of priorities. The Conservatives are out of touch with the priorities of middle-class families. Taxpayers are in fact disgusted by the flagrant abuse of their tax dollars on these ads. The Conservatives must end this wasteful spending of tax dollars immediately. For a plan, they need look no further than to my Liberal colleague, the member for Ottawa South and his private member's Bill C-544. His legislation would end wasteful government advertising by requiring the ads be vetted by an independent, non-partisan body before they can be released. It is the right thing to do.

If the Conservatives fail to act, then Canadians will have to wait until a Liberal government, after the next election, brings in these measures that would take partisan politics out of government advertising, and put an end to this wasteful spending and abuse of tax dollars.

The Conservatives like to preach that government has a responsibility to communicate with Canadians, but they fail to mention that they also have a duty to taxpayers to ensure that the way in which we communicate to Canadians is ethical, economical and responsible. In this respect, the Conservatives have failed miserably.

A Liberal government, led by the member for Papineau, would clean up this mess, would put in place good governance to ensure that tax dollars are not wasted, and would ensure that the government is able to communicate with Canadians and provide valuable services to Canadians, while at the same time respecting tax dollars and ensuring the power of government is not abused for partisan purposes.

Scott Brison

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