by Propaganda
the covert intent was which vote should be cast. The PQ government responded with
an employment billboard with large letters featuring the acronym of the Office de la
Securité d’Emploi—OSE. The word “ose” in French means “dare.” In other words, the
billboard suggested that people dare to vote for Quebec sovereignty. One argument
in justification for the federal blitz was that, since the province had control over the
teaching system and the CEGEPs (schools straddling high school and post-secondary
education), the Quebec government had an unfair advantage. Certainly it made use of
this advantage at the time of the introduction of the 1981 Constitutional Amendment
(later to become the 1982 Amendment), when it circulated to history departments in
all the schools and in public places such as liquor outlets an emotional 21-page booklet
with the heading “Minute Ottawa!” The booklet contained a tendentious presentation
and interpretation of the constitutional amendments.97
With the referendum over, the advertising competition did not stop. The Quebec
government, in anticipation of constitutional changes, placed a two-page advertise-
ment in August 1980 in Le Devoir setting out its own position, the federal position, and the position of other provinces on a number of constitutional and policy issues.
The federal government produced a large amount of advertising of its own, prompting
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an indignant column by W.A. Wilson in the Ottawa Journal, “Ads tread fearful line between information and propaganda.” Wilson’s comments are worth recording:
The real problem with propaganda, as opposed to information, is that it is intended
to condition the public mind by evading the questions and need for answers which
are inherent in the information process. That is why media manipulation, a form of
propaganda, is so popular during election campaigns—the purpose is not to spread
information but to condition the popular mind ...98
The federal government’s National Unity Office also came up with television
advertising showing trees, canoes, and Canada geese in flight, thus promoting a “feel
good” attitude towards the nation. This brought an expression of disgust from Ottawa
Citizen columnist Charles Lynch: “B-R-A-A-A-C-K says it al .” The geese received so
much exposure that an editorial page cartoon still made reference to them in the same
paper seven years later; one flying goose says to another, “A Free-Trade TV commer-
cial? ... No way! ... I can still feel the buckshot we took on those National Unity ads.”99
Perhaps the 1980 referendum gave the federal government a taste for massive
advertising. About three-quarters of a page in the Ottawa Citizen on September 4,
1980 was taken up with an advertisement by Employment and Immigration Canada
showing a group of young people; its headline was “Help wanted before September 29.
Canada’s employment plans won’t work without you.”100 This conveys the impression
that the government was doing something about unemployment, in this case through
community development projects. Typically, an advertisement in one paper such as
the Ottawa Citizen is indicative of an advertisement circulating in other newspapers as well. I asked for and obtained from the department a list of newspapers and insertion dates for one such advertisement. For Ontario alone, 43 daily newspapers from
the Barrie Examiner to the Woodstock Sentinel Review were listed, all within the same week. Of course all the major papers, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and so on were included. The advertisement was listed as having a space size of 1,500 lines and
was in black and white. Two other lists were involved, one of weekly English news-
papers, the other of French language weeklies outside Quebec. Only two insertions
were allotted to the weekly newspapers in either language. Thus, the total reach of the
advertisement was huge and at considerable cost to the taxpayer.101
In 1982, a ful -page advertisement of a scene showing farmland at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains was headed “Canada—We have a lot to offer each other” and went
on to say that the Government of Canada spends $160 million annually to support
Agriculture Canada research and other favourable items. Across Canada, an expensive
campaign was carried out to promote the ill-fated new national energy policy. Full-
page advertisements proclaimed “Complete energy security for Canada is this close.”
And a picture of a greatly enlarged digital finger and thumb about an inch apart was
portrayed.102
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There was another incident that same year in which the distinction between
government advertising and reported news was blurred. A full-page advertisement
from Supply and Services Canada was placed in the Moncton Times, in a 10-page sec-
tion devoted entirely to a new federal building at Shediac, in which the department
was the major occupant. The advertisement proclaimed “In Shediac 442 new jobs
serving Canadians.” Pictures of Supply and Services Minister Jean-Jacques Blais and
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Romeo LeBlanc were placed on page one with the
headline “LeBlanc, Blais to officiate at opening of Shediac offices.” A story on page
three detailed the history and organization of the Department of Supply and Services.
On another page were profiles of Blais and Paul Cosgrove, Minister of Public Works,
and a further story on page nine dealt with how the department is “in contact with all
aspects of life in Canada.”103
Not surprisingly, in areas where federal and provincial interests were at cross-pur-
poses, the provinces retaliated. A federally sponsored advertisement in the Montreal
Gazette in February 1983 brought a full-page response from the Saskatchewan
Department of Agriculture opposing the federal changes to the Crow rate. Where
the federal advertisement said “The Crow goes without a flap,” the Saskatchewan
advertisement, published in the Globe and Mail two months later, produced such a
flap, telling readers to write to Pierre Trudeau and other federal ministers to oppose
the measures.104
Verbal and pictorial duelling between Ottawa and Quebec reached mammoth
advertising proportions in 1999 over health care and other areas of shared financial
responsibilities. A full page in Le Devoir, proclaiming Ottawa’s unpaid bills to Quebec was faced by a half-page advertisement by the Canadian government showing that
Quebec, with 24 per cent of the population, was going to receive a 34 per cent increase
in transfer payments in the 1999 budget. Josh Freed devoted a column describing the
“avalanche of ads” in the Montreal Gazette.105
The problem with this jousting is that it is paid for by the taxpayer and enriches
the media, introducing conflict between the two sets of interests. Under the circum-
stances a fierce attack by the media upon this practice appears, humanly speaking,
unlikely. Pressures to stop it would then have to come from the general public. A solu-
tion might be to strike a committee, reflecting both viewpoints, to examine and clarify
the opposing positions and communicate the results to
the public.
In January 1984, the Liberal government hit on the idea of flying student news-
paper editors to Toronto where they were told by Employment and Immigration
Minister John Roberts about “cafeteria programs” available for jobless youth. He
announced that the job creation budget would be increased to $1.2 billion for 1984.
He also asked for suggestions and criticisms about existing programs. As a way of gain-
ing favourable publicity for the program, this meeting backfired. A story in the Globe
and Mail focused on the cost of flying the students in and accommodating them in a
good hotel, although it did mention that they had been given a tour of employment
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centres. A student from Simon Fraser University in BC estimated that his expenses cost $1,000. All of this came after a report in the Ottawa Citizen that the Trudeau
cabinet was “Putting the finishing touches on an $11-million, election-year advertising
blitz to sell federal government programs.” The story quoted Progressive Conservative
MP Perrin Beatty as saying the campaign appeared to be an attempt “to polish their
own image in preparation for an election.” However, Roberts, identified as chairman
of a 12-member cabinet communications committee, was said to have insisted that
the advertising would not be “advocacy” in nature. “He says it will be informational,
aimed at informing citizens what programs are available, based on surveys pointing to
information gaps with the public.”106
There is nothing new in the practice of flying appropriate opinion leaders to a
location where they are likely to be impressed. Aside from the British in World War I,
and other cases mentioned earlier, in the 1970s, the US Pentagon propaganda machine
defused opposition to missile sites by choosing community leaders and flying them to
a place where they received red carpet treatment, briefings, and displays.107
Despite denunciations of federal advertising overkill, the Progressive
Conservatives did much the same thing when they came to power. Thus, an eight-page
newsprint brochure in English and French, “Objective: Canada’s economic recovery,”
was distributed, proclaiming highlights of the 1991 budget with charts and graphs
putting a favourable slant on it. Liberal finance critic Herbert Gray was quoted as
saying, “This ad and its brochure are nothing more than Conservative propaganda,
and they should be paid for by the Conservative Party—not the hard-hit taxpayer.”108
A half-page advertisement in the Kingston Whig-Standard in 1985 with the name of
Employment and Immigration Canada Minister Flora MacDonald at the bottom
proclaimed “help a student step into the working world, and we’ll foot the bill.” In
this case, there was cooperation with the provincial government, since the name of
the Ontario Minister for Youth, Phil Gillies, also appeared at the bottom with the
Ontario logo.109
One of the most insidious aspects of government advertising is the attempt to
use it to buy coverage in the news columns of a paper. A Canadian Press story in 1986
detailed such an offer:
Newspapers across the country are being offered a lucrative advertising deal if they
agree to publish a number of Government articles provided by the federal Energy
Department.
The department has agreed to buy a full page of advertising if the newspa-
pers agree to print six of 30 articles it provides on transportation technology. Earl
Matthews, the department’s marketing manager, says he sees nothing wrong with
putting conditions on the advertising purchase.
“Basically it’s to get the message out,” Mr. Matthews said in a telephone interview
from Ottawa, and not an attempt to control editorial content in the newspapers.
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“We’re saying here’s 30 articles, print six. You pick what you want to print,”
he said. “You can take our copy and rewrite it if you wish... as long as the facts are
straight.”
As the Globe and Mail editorialized two days later, “The facts, of course, are those selected by Energy Canada, as may be imagined from a recent title: Federal Energy
Minister Shows Alternative Fuel Leadership.” The editorial made the following useful
ethical analysis of the situation: “The department is using public money to feed its
political message to readers disguised as something it is not—an article according to
the newspaper’s usual editorial standards of what is important and what is balanced.
The Government seeks to rent not just advertising space, but the newspaper itself. The
intrusion should be fought by all who value an independent press.” Two days after the
editorial, the chairman of the Canadian Daily Newspaper Publishers Association was
reported as denying that member newspapers would accept such a deal: “Daily news-
paper publishers throughout the country would not accept a contingency advertising
order which requires them to publish material in their news columns as a condition
of acceptance.” Energy Minister Pat Carney was also reported as suggesting in the
Commons that there was no such advertising deal and that such a practice would be
deplorable. But one of her aides said the minister was not denying the existence of the
deal, only denying an allegation that the government-written stories were propaganda.
In a further editorial, the Globe and Mail reiterated, “Instead of paying for the privilege of having its words run, or leaving it to editors to make a judgement on the quality of
articles submitted, the department is bribing the newspapers to shape their standards
to conform with the Government’s—and to give up a measure of their freedom.”110
In the 1990s, the Ontario government under Premier Mike Harris engaged in
extensive newspaper and direct-mail advertising, such as in its battle with striking
teachers. As one news report put it, some of the advertisements “tell the truth but
not necessarily the whole truth about what’s happening to the province’s healthcare
system.” Ontario’s advertising met with a response from the federal government in an
advertisement in the National Post proclaiming, “$11.5 billion more is a real shot in the arm for our healthcare system.”111
On March 11, 2002, the Ontario government paid a share of the costs of a six-page
supplement to the Globe and Mail, with no mention made of this fact. According to
government sources, the copy was provided by the government in consultation with
advertisers. The supplement was titled “Ontario’s Electricity,” followed in smaller type
by “Lighting the way to a brighter future” and “A special supplement on Ontario’s
new electricity market.” At the top of each page, with the exception of page M4, in
the space that journalists designate the “flag” or the “folio,” there appeared in unusu-
ally large bold capital letters “The Globe and Mail, Monday, March 11, 2002.” Among
the sub-headings was “Customer protection paramount.” Energy Probe has found
some questionable statements and omissions in the supplement pointing to disguised
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HICS OF PERSUASION
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advertising in favour of the government’s policies, contrary to the Advertising Code and to principles of journalistic ethics.112 One may well ask what has happened to
the earlier fierce independence of the Globe and Mail? An obvious candidate for the
answer was the takeover of the newspaper by Bell Canada Enterprises. BCE still owns
CTV through its subsidiary, Bell Media.
In 2012, conspicuous government advertising in major newspapers appears to
the author to have diminished at the time of writing. This is not the same thing as
saying that there is less government propaganda but only that use of the more visible
kind in newspapers has become less in evidence. What needs careful monitoring is
the extent of government advertising on radio, television, and social media, but this
is difficult and time-consuming and would require some group organized for the pur-
pose. It is noteworthy that what used to be Environment Canada’s weather website is
now simply called “Weather” with the Canada logo at a distance on the screen top.
Advertisements boosting the Economic Action Plan and other government activi-
ties appear at the bottom of the screen.113 The current government of Prime Minister
Stephen Harper has clamped down on the freedom of government scientists to talk
to the press, which is a different way of affecting public opinion, but one that is poten-
tially no less propagandistic.
ADDEnDUM, 2012
Much has happened in the way of propaganda since the first edition of this book 10
years ago. Perhaps the most significant was the build-up to the war in Iraq, when the US
government under the administration of President George W. Bush, and the help of a
mainly compliant press, made use of misleading information and imagery to persuade
the world of the justice of their cause. The stakes here were so high that controls of a
more stringent sort seem to warrant our attention.
The pretexts were, first, that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had links with al-Qaeda
and was therefore connected with the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon; second, that he was pushing ahead with a nuclear
