Ruling by Information Commissioner

Response from Industry and Resources

REGINA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on the province to scrap the "Our Future is Wide Open" campaign in light of new documents proving the public was misled for the last 13 months.

"This new information confirms what the CTF has been saying all along," said CTF Saskatchewan Director David MacLean. "The government lied to the people of Saskatchewan about how much they planned to spend on this campaign."

"After the Premier's admission that the campaign is "small-p" political, this campaign has absolutely no value to Saskatchewan and has to be immediately scrapped," added MacLean.

"They've lied to us about the budget for the campaign, lied about the cost of the campaign, and they lied to us about how they were paying for it. Now they're lying about when they knew what," said MacLean. "If we can't trust them to manage a ridiculous ad campaign, how can we trust them to manage a $6 billion budget "

The government has released confidential documents indicating the province knew since the outset that the original budget for the campaign was $12 million, and that the money was always intended to come from Crown Investments Corporation. The Premier has denied knowledge of this.

Today's government admission comes after the CTF waged a long battle to obtain the original budget for the campaign. Until now, the province has refused to release it on the grounds that it is considered 'advice to cabinet.' In July, the CTF publicized figures proving the campaign had far exceeded its budget. Industry and Resources Minister Eric Cline said the CTF's figures were "absolutely false."

"Now that we have proven the province is lying about the ads, we have to ask, what else are they lying about " added MacLean.