CBC, CTV, Global collectively capture $8M of departmental ad spending
By Linda Stuart
The federal government spent nearly $60 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year across its departments on government ads, with the lion’s share appearing to go toward ad placements on digital platforms, documents tabled last week in Parliament show.
The government’s total ad spend was revealed in a Sept. 21 response to a question from NDP MP Don Davies regarding annual expenditures on government advertising. The MP for Vancouver Kingsway asked for ad expenditures for the last five fiscal years, broken down by campaign, department and advertising medium.
The 24 federal departments and institutions that responded to the MP’s query provided varying degrees of granularity in their responses, with some listing a mix of digital and traditional media for various ad campaigns and not delineating the ad spend on each medium.
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) reported ad expenditures of nearly $10.2 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year (April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026), with close to $10 million of that amount going toward its “Building Canada’s Economy” campaign. Instead of breaking down the ad expense by medium, ISED listed all of the media and platforms the campaign ran on, including television, radio, out-of-home, display and video 360 programmatic display banners, Amazon, Radio-Canada, YouTube, YouTube (connected TV), Bell Media, Rogers, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Corus, Netflix, Quebecor, Ethnique Media, Reddit, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Search Engine Marketing (Google, Bing). The rest of ISED’s ad spending for the fiscal year, more than $200,000, was for digital ad campaigns, according to the document tabled in Parliament.
Canadian Heritage, however, did provide a breakdown of the $687,525 the department spent on government advertising in the 2025-26 fiscal year. Of that amount, Canadian Heritage spent $498,747 on various digital campaigns, according to the tabled document. In comparison, it spent $8,229 on television ads for its “The O Canada! Station” campaign, and $68,964 on radio ads for its “Canada Day 2025” and “Winterlude 2026” campaigns. The department spent a further $111,585 on out-of-home advertising for three campaigns, including “The O Canada! Station”, “Winterlude 2026” and “Discover Arts and Heritage.”
Analysis of 2025-26 advertising expenditures reported by other departments suggests the vast majority of government ad spending was for digital campaigns.
In a separate government response to a question from Conservative MP Roman Baber, also tabled on Sept. 21, the federal government provided some insight into its ad spending on traditional broadcasters. Baber, the MP for North York, asked for the total amount spent during the 2025-26 fiscal year on government advertising on specifically CTV and CTV News Channel, CBC and CBC News Network, and Global Television.
Of the 32 federal departments and institutions that responded to this query, very few reported direct spending on advertisements on the specified media outlets. Those that did, reported expenditures for only advertising not done through the Canadian government’s agency of record, which would include campaigns with media placement under $40,000. Acting as a common service provider, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) manages the contract for and reports all advertising purchased through the federal government’s agency of record, which is currently EssenceMediacom Canada.
Responding on behalf of the government, PSPC reported the total amount spent on advertising through the agency of record on CTV and CTV News Channel, CBC and CBC News Network, and Global Television was $7,936,802. This amount excluded advertising placed directly by government departments and institutions that did not go through the agency of record for campaigns with media buys under $40,000, the PSPC said in the government’s tabled document.
In response to an email from Cartt asking if this $7.9 million figure could be broken down by individual media outlet, a PSPC spokesperson replied Monday to say: “The $7,936,802 represents advertising expenditures placed through the AOR [agency of record] with the three media organizations identified in the question. PSPC cannot provide a breakdown of that total by individual media outlet because those amounts are subject to confidential agency volume agreements. Disclosure could interfere with Government of Canada contractual negotiations or affect the competitive position of a third party.”
Departments and institutions that did report direct advertising spending on one of the three media outlets include Canadian Heritage, which reported spending $19,305.66 for ads on CBC and CBC News Network, and the National Film Board of Canada, which reported spending $13,333 for ads placed on CTV and CTV News Channel.
Other institutions that reported direct ad purchases on CBC and CBC News Network include the National Battlefields Commission ($21,798.82), Correctional Service of Canada ($7,988.10), Environment and Climate Change Canada ($34,964.57), and PSPC including the Translation Bureau and the Defence Investment Agency ($4,539).
Public Safety Canada reported its marketing team spent $104,608.84 on the CTV Television Network News Channel, specifically for video-connected television and YouTube-connected television.
ISED reported no expenditures were incurred by the department for advertisements on CTV/CTV News Channel, CBC/CBC News Network or Global Television.
In response to an email from Cartt, an ISED spokesperson confirmed last Friday that ISED did not directly purchase advertising on any of the networks specified in the initial request.
“For the ‘Building Canada’s Economy’ campaign, the Agency of Record managed media placements with expenditures coordinated and contracted through Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC),” the spokesperson said via email.
“The Government of Canada also does not disclose the amounts paid to individual media outlets because of confidential agency volume agreements through its agency of record. This is considered confidential. It could interfere with contractual negotiations with the Government of Canada and impact the competitive position of a third party,” the spokesperson added.
Photo from the federal government’s website
