With files from 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 going to digital platforms, according to documents tabled in Parliament last week.
As first reported by Broadcast Dialogue’s sister publication, CARTT.ca, 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.
Of the 24 federal departments and institutions that responded, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) reported ad expenditures of nearly $10.2 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year – close to $10 million of that on its “Building Canada’s Economy” campaign.
While not breaking down spend by medium, the campaign ran across Amazon, CBC/Radio-Canada, YouTube, YouTube (connected TV), Bell Media, Rogers, Corus Entertainment, Netflix, Quebecor, Ethnique Media, Reddit, Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn, in addition to Search Engine Marketing (Google, Bing). The rest of ISED’s ad spend for the fiscal year (more than $200,000) was allocated to digital ad campaigns.
Canadian Heritage spent $687,525 on government advertising in the 2025-26 fiscal year – $498,747 on various digital campaigns, just $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. A further $111,585 was spent on out-of-home advertising.
Analysis of advertising expenditures reported by other departments suggests the vast majority of government ad spending went to digital campaigns, which have been heavily favoured over traditional broadcast media in recent years, capturing 63% ($40.57M) of net media placement costs, according to the most recent complete fiscal year data (2024–25).
Traditional media earned 37% ($23.63M), according to that report, with 52% spent on television ($12.38M), 35% spent on Out-of-Home (Billboards/Transit) ($8.34M), 11% on radio ($2.68M), and one per cent on print ($222,000).
Ongoing lobbying point
The issue is the ongoing focus of private broadcaster lobbying efforts and identified as a priority by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) for the fall parliamentary session.
CAB President Kevin Desjardins wrote in an op-ed for Broadcast Dialogue last month that “Ottawa should buy Canadian media, including a commitment to direct at least 70 per cent of federal advertising expenditures to Canadian-owned radio, television, print and digital media.”
“If government purchasing power can be used strategically to strengthen Canadian industries and workers, the same principle should apply to Canadian media,” he continued.
In a separate government response, also tabled on Sept. 21, the federal government provided some insight into its ad spending with traditional broadcasters. North York MP Roman Baber asked for the total amount spent during the 2025-26 fiscal year on government advertising on CTV and CTV News Channel, CBC and CBC News Network, and Global TV, specifically.
Responding on behalf of the government, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), which manages and reports all advertising purchased through the federal government’s agency of record (EssenceMediacom Canada) reported the total amount spent on advertising through the agency of record on those legacy television outlets was $7,936,802. That excludes 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.
