Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
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Government Advertising
The Government of Canada's approach to advertising is guided by the principles of value for money, transparency, and accountability. The three main objectives are to:
- Strengthen the overall management of government advertising;
- Improve planning and decision-making to achieve strategic communication objectives; and
- Ensure transparency of advertising activities.
A key element of the Government's approach to advertising includes more rigorous planning and management on an annual cycle. Federal institutions are encouraged to pool their knowledge and efforts to develop joint advertising initiatives on shared themes and geared to common audiences.
Under an annual cycle:
- Departments and agencies prepare advertising proposals reflecting government priorities, and recommendations are submitted to the Cabinet;
- Cabinet decides which proposals will go ahead and determines a maximum allocation for each;
- An amount is set aside in the fiscal framework by the Treasury Board for spending on advertising (funds may also come from new funding decisions or from funds already allocated to departments);
- Departments and agencies prepare Treasury Board submissions for approved advertising initiatives to obtain funds;
- Following Treasury Board approval, funds are allocated to departments to be managed by them; and
- Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) administers contracting and procurement for approved initiatives, administers the Advertising Management Information System (AdMIS), and develops and issues an annual report.
To ensure that Parliamentarians and Canadians are well informed of government advertising activities, the following measures are in place:
- The Annual Report on Government of Canada Advertising Activities prepared and released publicly by PWGSC provides an overview of the government's advertising management practices, outlines the Government of Canada advertising initiatives and provides an overview of the results achieved. The annual report also lists all expenditures by federal institutions, as well as expenditures by media type;
- Approved allocations made from the annual amount set aside for advertising initiatives are posted on this Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat web site;
- All advertising-related contracts are posted on Contracts Canada, PWGSC web site for contract-related information, and all departments and agencies must also post all contracts over $10,000 on their own respective web sites; and
- All advertising research contracted out by the Government of Canada, whether to pre-test or to evaluate campaigns is available to the public through Library and Archives Canada, and information on those researches is posted on the web site www.porr-rrop.gc.ca and reflected in PWGSC's Public Opinion Research in the Government of Canada Annual Report.
For more information on contracting, please see PWGSC's web site at: www.contractscanada.gc.ca. The advertising fund allocations as well as related information are listed below:
Advertising Fund Allocations
- 2010-2011
- 2009-2010
- 2008-2009
- 2007-2008
- 2006-2007
- 2005-2006
- 2004-2005
N.B.: The Cabinet determines where the funds for government advertising will be coming from; and these funds can come from other sources than the amount set aside annually by the Treasury Board for government advertising, such as departmental reference levels. As a result, government-wide advertising expenditures are often greater than the total amount reported here.
