Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement yesterday I spoke about the need for this government to reduce expenditures. One area, in my view, that is ripe for picking some funds and removing them is print advertising.
The Minister of Finance yesterday was good enough to advise me that, yes, we do have policies that govern this particular expense. But I have to ask the Minister: has he done a cost benefit analysis of this type of expense, the use of print advertising, and what is the value to this government of print advertising?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, clearly, the value of the printed word is very important as part of the way we communicate. The actual dollar figure, in terms of how much we advertise and what our printing costs are, I don’t have with me today. But I will commit to getting the best numbers we can for the Member.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank him for that. I wasn’t necessarily asking for a dollar value; I was asking for a value per dollar spent. I didn’t hear an answer to the question of whether or not there has been a cost benefit analysis done on print advertising. It is for me, I think, one of the methods of communication that is least effective. So I’d like to ask the Minister again: has there ever been a cost benefit analysis done on print advertising from the GNWT?
Mr. Speaker, over time there has been. There have been checks to see how we advertise jobs in different newspapers. There have been attempts to centralize that type of work to save costs, of course. There is great consternation at the community level among the community newspapers and regional newspapers when they get cut out of the advertising business.
Clearly, there is a pressure for us to communicate and consult with our constituents across the land. The tendency is, as we look at saving money, to say, “Let’s just try to advertise in the News/North, because everybody reads the News/North.” It leaves out things like The Hub, the Slave River Journal, the Deh Cho Drum and the Inuvik Drum. We have to balance it. This is not just a straight dollar issue; it’s an issue of how we get our message out and what value we place on that as well.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have to state my belief, though, that there is some advertising the government does that I see a value to. Certainly, advertising jobs and advertising for consultation is extremely valuable.
But I do take great offence at many of the print ads that announce a particular day, that announce a particular…. For instance, there’s a full page ad in one of the papers south of the lake that welcomed students back to school — ads proclaiming “Whatever Day” by the various departments. I have a problem with those, and I’d like to know from the Minister, in terms of an analysis of the print advertising that we do…. Yes, there are benefits to some and not to others. But has there been a consideration of removing those kinds of ads that do nothing, I think, in terms of efficiency of the government but simply glorify a particular department?
We’re going to be starting the business planning process, and Members will have an opportunity to comb through the plans of each department. We are looking for efficiencies; we are looking for savings; we want to control our costs; we want value for money. At the same time, we want to be able to communicate in the best way possible using as many local resources as we can. That is a discussion we’re prepared to have across the board so that there are no sacred cows, as it were, or Ministers or departments. We’re prepared to look at all that through the business planning process.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. A final short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for answering the question that was in my head. I’m really glad to hear that this is an area that is going to be considered.
I’d like to know, relative to the policies that he mentioned yesterday, whether or not they will be considered in light of reducing the spending on print advertising and if the policies will be evaluated for the value of full page ads advertising a particular day or welcoming kids back to school.
As I committed to in the House yesterday, we’re going to pull together the information. We do have policies as they pertain to print advertising for jobs and such. We’ll share that with the committee as we move forward into the business planning process and as we look at the upcoming business plans, which are going to contain expenditure reductions for the coming year. Then, yes, we can have that discussion. We can try to make sure that we give the clearest political direction as a Legislature as to how we think these dollars can best be spent and at what level of expenditure.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.
