Ted Barris

There I was, a few weeks ago, settling into my TV easy chair on a Saturday night, prepared to watch the Leafs play somebody. And suddenly the screen was awash with picturesque images of rural Ontario. Next, there was a guy in a tractor cab.

“Is this a trailer for a CBC series I haven’t seen?” I asked myself.

Then the same guy was offloading sacks from a flatbed near his barn. And there was a lush soundtrack of orchestral music rising behind him. And I realized this was an advertisement.

“It’s gotta be a beer commercial,” I thought, “because they’re the only sponsors who can afford commercial spots on Hockey Night in Canada.”

The music fades and a voiceover chimes in. “What if we told you there’s a place where it’s all happening?” he asks rhetorically. And the scene cuts to a rapid camera pull-back amid people in a subway or bus.

“OK,” I thought. “Maybe this is an ad for an insurance company or a car manufacturer,” again because only deep-pocketed corporations such as those could possibly be buying ads on the network in HNIC primetime. “Pretty high end,” I thought.

That was followed by travelling shots of young people in laboratories and classrooms and a voiceover about “people training for tomorrow.” Then, swooping drone videos of cars on highways and a bassett hound hanging out of a car window, as the voice says “a place that’s building roads and highways.” More industrial shots with sparks flying, robotic assembly lines and electric charging stations.

“And what if we told you, you already live here?” the announcer says as the Ontario government logo arrives on screen.

It wasn’t selling beer, cars or insurance at all. The Ontario government had just unveiled a new taxpayer-funded advertising campaign – called “It’s Happening Here” – promoting the Doug Ford administration’s economic development, highway expansion and electric-battery production plans.

Within days, I began hearing the same spots on radio, seeing them on social media, billboards and transit posters. Promoting what? The provincial government’s policies, that’s what. This wasn’t a product or service ad. It was Ford’s Conservatives promoting Ford’s Conservatives. And we’re paying for it!

To be fair, all governments spend our money to promote their agendas. As Mike Crawley pointed out on CBC Radio recently, in December 2016, then auditor general Bonnie Lysyk lambasted the Kathleen Wynne government for spending millions in 2015-16 promoting its policies.

But the Ford Conservatives love this kind of spending. They did it with their so-called “pat on the back” ads against carbon taxes in 2017. Then, leading up to the provincial election in 2022, Lysyk informed Ontarians that the PCs had spent $13.5 million on their “Ontario Is Getting Stronger” campaign. And we paid for that too!

The difference is that it’s 2024! Ontarians and their public services are straining from post-COVID fatigue, chronic neglect and inadequate funding. Jay Goldberg, the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation said, “We shouldn’t be seeing these kinds of ads that are just political puff pieces.”

What’s worse, one can imagine with the Ford government’s behind-closed-doors record on Greenbelt mismanagement that they didn’t bother to clear such ads with the auditor general. By law they’re supposed to.

Now, about financing those “It’s Happening” ads? They’re ultra-expensive. Let’s start with production costs. You’ve got multiple locations, indoors and out. You’ve got professional actors, technical crews, production gear and transportation. A day’s shooting – with lights, cameras, drones, production professionals, on-camera performers and catering – can easy consume $75,000 to $100,000, not to mention overtime.

And post-production assembly can cost $20,000-plus per day. Then, there’s the placement of those ads … in primetime. About 10 years ago, it cost advertisers – and governments don’t get special rates – about $95,000 for each 30 seconds of air time on Hockey Night in Canada. Add inflation and the ad executives’ cut, and we’re talking a million of your taxpayers’ dollars for one Saturday night’s promotion of the Doug Ford agenda on HNIC.

So, are you glad “it’s happening here”? Or, would you be more glad if the Ford government spent those feel-good millions on keeping long-term health facilities safer (remember the government’s “iron ring” promise?), more health-care professionals on staff for the next pandemic, and better wages for primary, high-school and post-secondary staff (such as those striking York University educators)?

By the way, somebody should ask if the Ontario government ad geniuses paid to use the copyrighted “A Place to Stand” theme at the end of those TV ads? Or did they just assume that composer Dolores Claman and lyricist Richard Morris are content knowing “it’s happening here”?