Where the federal government has been spending your money on social media
CBC
Ads promoting Canada's 150th anniversary celebrations, annual budgets and outreach to veterans were among the biggest items in the federal government's social media ad spending over the past seven years, a CBC News analysis shows.
CBC queried some federal departments after obtaining a document listing expenses by department. The document was produced in response to a question posed by Conservative MP Michael Cooper in the House of Commons last January.
One of the biggest spenders has been the Department of Canadian Heritage, which paid Facebook more than $1 million in 2017 alone, when it was promoting Canada's 150th anniversary celebrations. It spent more than $500,000 combined in the other years since 2016.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced the government would be suspending all of its social-media spending on Facebook and Instagram, platforms owned by Meta.
Rodriguez announced the ad suspension after Meta threatened to block Canadian news links in response to the government's Online News Act, C-18, which was passed last month.
The Online News Act compels online media companies like Meta and Google to pay money to news organizations each time a user accesses a story through a link on one of their products.
"Facebook has decided to be unreasonable, irresponsible," Rodriguez said. While Google also has threatened to block Canadian news links, Rodriguez has said his government is still in negotiations with that company.
In a statement issued to CBC News, his department said the spending in 2017 to promote Canada 150 was part of a year-long campaign and Facebook is "one of the most popular used platforms in Canada."
Government purchases of Google ads are not listed individually in the document released to Cooper because he did not ask for that breakdown. Google and YouTube, the video platform owned by the same company, appear a handful of times in a category that lumps some social media platforms together.
In 2021, Transport Canada spent $6,060.74 on Google ads for a drone safety advertising campaign.
Fisheries and Oceans, the Communications Security Establishment and the Department of Finance have all spent money on YouTube between 2016 and now.
A note from Finance in 2017 described a $74,833.13 YouTube ad purchase as a promotion for Budget 2017 and "the newly redesigned Canada Child Benefit."
Facebook and Instagram received the lion's share of social media spending by the government. The document reported at least $56 million in federal government ad spending for the Meta platforms since 2016.
Finance spent nearly $2 million on Meta platforms between 2016 and now.
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