The Canadian Press (CP) reported this week that Parks Canada has hired a Toronto-based marketing firm at a cost of nearly $400,000 to help promote the federal agency to Canadians.

How did the newswire service find out about this? Through an Access to Information request, of course.

Far be it from the federal government to volunteer any information or answer questions directly. These days you’ve got to go through the frustrating and delay-laden process of filing a formal inquiry under the Access to Information Act.

Filing a request is actually fairly easy. Getting a reply is the tricky part. The government is supposed to supply requested documents within 30 days but that rarely happens. Files often arrive months later and heavily redacted. Some requests have taken years to be fulfilled.

Nevertheless, CP reporter Steve Rennie managed to get his hands on a document showing that Parks Canada is paying the marketing firm Veritas $395,000 over two years.

“The specific objective is to increase awareness of Parks Canada and to create general interest in visiting Parks Canada and specifically national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas,” the document states.

Of course, being a reporter, Rennie wanted to know more. So he inquired the old-fashioned way – over the phone. Surprise, surprise: “No one from the company or Parks Canada returned a call for comment.”

Why all the secrecy?

Well, it’s pretty much par for the course under the current federal government, which heavily restricts its staff from speaking publicly on even the most mundane and apolitical of matters. Message control from the Prime Minister’s Office extends to the furthest reaches of the bureaucracy. If you’re not repeating the talking points handed down to you from above, you’re probably not permitted to say much at all.

We imagine someone in Parks Canada would have liked to explain why the agency deemed it necessary  to hire Veritas. There probably is a decent explanation, too. The documents CP received suggest it’s because there is a surprising lack of awareness among residents of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver about Parks Canada, what it does, and the fact that it even exists.

“The degree of knowledge is very low in these three cities, particularly among young Canadians and immigrants,” says the statement of work. “Canadians also remain confused about what Parks Canada does and the reasons national parks are established.”

Assuming that’s true, it seems reasonable to try to educate Canadians a bit. Part of Parks Canada’s mandate is to communicate with the citizens of this country, which is hard to do if the citizens have never heard of you. 

After all, as its charter states: “We are storytellers recounting the history of our land and our people –the stories of Canada.” The irony is that, in this case, Parks is hiring someone else to tell its own story.

Maybe we’re just old-fashioned, like Rennie and his naive belief that picking up the phone and asking a question might yield a response. Maybe hiring a professional firm is necessary, in today’s hyper-marketed world, to get your message across.

But somehow we think the dedicated, knowledgeable and talented people within Parks Canada are perfectly capable of telling their own stories, given the chance.