B.C.’s NDP government spent nearly $6.3 million last year for companies to create ministry advertising campaigns.
The total is the aggregate of fees and expenses, including subcontractor costs and agency hard costs, according to a list obtained under the freedom of information law. The amounts paid to the 14 suppliers for 63 assignments do not include GST.
One of those suppliers, Now Communications Group Inc., received $881,000 for 14 assignments. NDP campaign workers established the company after Mike Harcourt’s 1991 election victory.
Its former CEO and partner, Marie Della Mattia, was the Deputy Minister of Government Communications and Public Engagement (GCPE) from November 2022 until earlier this month. Della Mattia resigned in order to manage this year’s re-election campaign for Premier David Eby’s party. Her sister Michele is Now’s vice-president of operations.
Last spring, Della Mattia said she declared a conflict of interest and did not participate in decisions about contracts and assignments. Instead, they were handled by GCPE assistant deputy minister Sage Aaron, the director of communications in the Office of the Premier from 2017 to 2021.
“It's ridiculous for the provincial government to be doling out taxpayer funds to close friends and associates,” said Carson Binda, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “It's even more disgusting when you think about the fact that political parties in B.C., like the NDP, receive huge amounts of taxpayer subsidies through the per-vote subsidy.”
The NDP has received nearly $2.4 million under the allowance scheme since Jan. 15, 2023.
Government procurement rules normally require open, public tendering for contracts $75,000 and up. GCPE chooses agencies for work as-and-when needed from a preferred supplier’s list created by NDP-appointed political aides.
Now and three other agencies accounted for 39 assignments worth $3.07 million. Trapeze Communications Inc. of Victoria topped the list at $1.45 million for 16 assignments. Vancouver’s Here Be Monsters Inc. ($440,138 for three assignments) and Captus Advertising Ltd. ($304,760 for four assignments) were others. Here Be Monsters received the biggest single assignment at $394,000 for the November 2023 to March 2024 HPV vaccination campaign.
GCPE’s overall budget for the year ending March 31 is $29.34 million, 12.1 percent of which is for advertising campaigns. The government censored information on contingencies from briefing notes for Finance Minister Katrine Conroy due to “cabinet confidences.”
Spending on central government advertising more than doubled in the space of three years, from $12.4 million in 2018-2019 to $26.7 million in 2021-2022.
GCPE’s base budget in 2021-2022 was $28.34 million, but it ballooned to $50.7 million due to “structural staffing and operating pressures” and increased spending on pandemic and vaccine ads and for smaller campaigns about environment, forestry, child care and anti-racism.
Conroy’s briefing binder for the 2023 budget estimates hearings said there were 307 staff positions in GCPE as of last March, 170 in government communications offices, 52 in the corporate priorities division, 48 in strategic communications and 37 in the deputy minister’s office.
Meanwhile, the NDP government spent just over $2 million on advertising with web giants last year.
More than half of that — $1.072 million — was on YouTube.
Counting $176,000 for Google search and $3,000 for Google display, B.C. taxpayers paid parent company Alphabet $1.25 million.
The government also spent $668,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads, nearly half the $1.4 million from the previous year.
Last summer, parent company Meta blocked Canadian news from its platforms in reaction to the so-called “link tax”on tech companies under the federal Liberal government’s Online News Act. Eby responded by stopping government ads on those social networks, except for those about public health and emergency topics.
“It was more important to them to make a point with the federal government than it was to ensure reliable local news information was available for communities that were threatened by wildfire,” Eby said at a January news conference.
Since June 2019, the NDP government has spent $1.23 million, according to the Facebook ad library. That includes $16,666 spent from Feb. 5-11, mainly on respiratory illness season ads.
In the same four-and-a-half years, the party has spent $692,000, including $1,930 from Feb. 5-11.
“This is another example of government saying one thing and doing another,” Binda said.
During its 16 years in opposition, the NDP was harshly critical of BC Liberal government ad spending. Before he became premier, John Horgan accused Christy Clark’s administration of “padding the pockets of their political pals.”
Feb. 22 is budget day in B.C.
