A new report released today brings word that the federal government's advertising spending more than doubled during the first fiscal year the Conservatives were in power, compared to the previous year.

The Annual Report on Government of Canada Advertising Activities 2006-2007 confirms that the Tories love of advertising came with a price: $87 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year, to be exact.

This advertising refers not to the sort of ads we usually talk about when it comes to Conservatives — their infamous attacks on Stephane Dion's leadership, for example. The Conservative Party, not taxpayers, pays for that.

Rather, these are less partisan government messages — those heavily-distributed 'Apocalypse Now'-style military recruitment ads, for example.

But note the use of 'less partisan,' rather than a more pure 'non-partisan' adjective to describe these ads. Because as we learned from the sponsorship scandal, government advertising is there in large part to publicize what the governing party is doing. 'Improve visibility', as the strategists might say. Even public service messages still have at their core the desire to remind Canadians that the government is doing useful things for them.

One advantage of governing, however, is that there are more ways to publicize your actions than paid advertising. As fond as the Conservatives are of the bought-and-paid-for type of messaging, they have other tools in their shed as well.

One recent example: notices were mailed in recent weeks to all parents getting the Conservatives' by now well-discussed $100/month 'child care' payments for children under six. The statement itself is as bureaucratic and proper as any income tax notice. But it comes with an insert — and that's basically an advertisement — bearing a 'happy children'-type logo, celebrating as it does the 'second anniversary' of these payments, congratulating the government for the help it's giving to families and signed by Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg.

The good news for the Tories in next year's spending reports is that these kinds of government messages never turn up in the official advertising tally.