EDMONTON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today called on the Klein government to stop spending tax dollars on a campaign to promote the "new automobile insurance system." A media advertising campaign to sell the system to Albertans, including brochures mailed to households and radio and newspaper advertising, is estimated to cost hundreds of thousands of tax dollars. The message of the advertising campaign is that the new system is fair - an assertion with which some Albertans would disagree.

With the Finance Ministry not providing an estimate of the cost of this campaign, the CTF has submitted a Freedom of Information request asking for the campaign's total costs, including radio and newspaper advertising, printing brochures, and mailing brochures.

"Government advertising should be limited to public health and public safety. Tax dollars should not be spent to promote government policies on which Albertans hold different opinions, like the government's new automobile insurance system," stated CTF-Alberta director John Carpay.

"Informing Albertans of a province-wide ban on campfires, or the availability of flu shots, or other issues of public health and public safety, is legitimate. But this is opinion advertising, to persuade Albertans that this new car insurance system is good and fair. Albertans can reach their own conclusions on whether this new system is good or not, without having their own money spent on persuading them of one particular view," continued Carpay.

"Alberta drivers will find out themselves whether their premiums go up or down, without hundreds of thousands of tax dollars being spent on advertising," concluded Carpay.