OTTAWA—Between Feb. 1 and March 13 of this year, functionaries in some of the most powerful corners of the federal government, including the finance department and Prime Minister’s Office, were seized with a series of pressing questions.Should the teenage boy on the cover of the upcoming budget, for instance, be really happy with a big smile, or just sort of happy with a smaller smile?Should the little girl in the next photo be holding a soccer ball, or playing the cello? Actually, what about an electric guitar? No, wait, let’s make it an acoustic guitar — but make sure you add some music notes floating in the air.Read more: Morneau gets chippy as the light is shone on his financesSuch were the preoccupations of government officials that are detailed in a 607-page trove of documents released recently to the Ottawa-based investigative journalism website, Blacklocks. They pertain to the Liberal government’s meticulous planning for the design of the 2017 budget cover — the physical front and back of the book — as well as accompanying fact sheets, web advertisements and explanatory videos.The whopper in the release, first reported last week, is that the finance department spent $212,234 on this exercise. That figure was compared with what the former Conservative government spent on budget covers, which, at a reported $600 in one instance, appears paltry — or frugal — in comparison.But, of course, the $212,000 cost of the current regime’s budget cover also included ad spending and videos for the 2017 budget’s website. Still, the documents show that just the photo shoot for the four images on the budget cover — actors posed at a studio in Montreal — cost the public $24,990.The stack of emails and design details also provides a look into how carefully this government can manage the images it releases.In early February, Natalie Rieger, senior marketing advisor in the finance department, naile ...
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