NOTE:
This
article also appeared in other Sun newspapers
PUBLICATION:
The
Toronto Sun
DATE: 2004.04.09
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
News
PAGE:
32
BYLINE:
STEPHANIE RUBEC, OTTAWA BUREAU
DATELINE:
OTTAWA
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FEDS
SPENT $2M ON GUN-LIST ADS
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The
federal Liberals quadrupled a 2000 ad contract to a whopping $2.1 million to try
to sell the embattled gun registry to Canadians, just-released documents show.
The lucrative contract, handed to Montreal ad firm Groupaction Marketing, was
repeatedly amended upwards over a 10-month period -- from $515,740 to
$2.1-million.
The
firm is being investigated by the RCMP for allegedly billing taxpayers three
times, or $1.6 million, for the same report.
Sun
Media has reported Groupaction was handed a $330,000 contract under the
sponsorship program in 1996 to produce a strategy to sell the gun registry.
Officials have said the justice department never asked for and didn't receive
it.
Documents
released by Public Works show the $515,740 April 25, 2000, contract was to pay
for print, TV and radio ads created to convince Canadians to register weapons.
Guidelines allowed execs to bill up to $252 an hour for their work.
In
a December 2000 ammendment, the Liberals boosted the deal by $650,355 to
$1.8-million, mostly to cover additional costs. By Feb. 23, 2001 it had zoomed
to $2.1 million.
"Two-million
was supposed to be the total cost of the registry ...they spent that ... in
advertising," Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz said, calling the ads a
waste.
The
auditor general called the gun registry one of Canada's biggest boondoggles. It
will cost 500 times more than expected, or $1-billion.
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DOLLARS SPENT ON ADVERTISING BILL C-68 = $29,301,386
Documented
as of: August 30, 2002
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/adcosts.htm