The Minority Blues

So it looks like Canada is up for another election.

Whatever you think of the various parties, or even our Parliamentary system in general, what you may not know about is an election's impact on Ottawa's advertising industry.

You see, ever since the sponsorship scandal, there's been a moratorium on most Federal Government advertising and opinion polls from the moment an election is called until the new (or returning) government is in place.

The purpose of this is to present a campaigning leader from using taxpayer-funded advertising to push his or her platform; the fallout is that many important and non-partisan social marketing campaigns get seriously delayed or killed by the delays and potential changes in policy.

So, with yesterday's announcement by the Opposition, Ottawa and Montreal agencies that specialize in federal social marketing are hoping their campaigns in progress see the light of day before Parliament reconvenes. But if not, we'll survive. At this point, we're quite used to it.