NDP spends $750,000 on budget ads
‘This is the kind of thing that makes people cynical about politics’: Clark
CALGARY The cash-strapped NDP government is putting nearly $750,000 toward advertising the provincial budget released last week, after spending almost that much to tout the financial plan it brought forward last fall.
The expenditure is drawing barbs from the opposition, but the government defends the television and Internet campaign for the budget, which sees Alberta facing a projected $10.4-billion deficit amid economic turmoil caused by low oil prices.
“What we heard time and time again from people is that they need to hear more about what our plan is,” said Cheryl Oates, press secretary for Premier Rachel Notley.
“They want to know what the government is doing, they want to know how we plan to deal with this economic downturn and so we’re making an effort to make sure they understand what our plan is and how they can access the programs we’ve put forward.”
Leah Holoiday, press secretary to Finance Minister Joe Ceci, said the government is spending $577,000 for its media buy, with the cost of producing the ads at $170,000, for a total of $747,000.
That compares with $736,450 on advertising for the provincial budget released by the NDP last October, though the government notes it is less than the $1.2 million spent by the former Progressive Conservative administration to publicize its 2014 budget.
The Tory government did not advertise its budget in the spring of 2015, which was released just ahead of a provincial election call, though then-premier Jim Prentice made a pre-budget televised address that cost $104,000.
A similar televised message by Notley a week before this year’s budget cost $90,000.
A television commercial for the current budget touts government infrastructure spending and the NDP’s reduction of the small business tax rate, as well as tax incentives for the petrochemical industry and plans to invest in energy efficiency.
Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark said there should be rules against the government using taxpayers’ dollars for such “partisan spin.”
“This is the kind of thing that makes people cynical about politics,” he said in an interview.
“$750,000 a year would hire, what, eight teachers? That’s a huge amount of money. I don’t care if it’s relative to the overall size of the budget, and if you think it isn’t you’ve lost all sense of perspective.”
The $51-billion budget released by Ceci, dubbed the Alberta Jobs Plan, sees the government slow the rate of increase on spending but make no major program cuts.
Wildrose finance critic Derek Fildebrandt said the government’s spending on budget advertising is out of bounds at all times.
“It’s particularly egregious when the government is hemorrhaging money,” he said.
The NDP government also spent $700,000 on the promotion of its climate change plan that was released last fall.