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THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — Public servants were asked to use official government Twitter feeds to promote Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recently announced tax measures, using the slogan “Strong Families.”

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A senior bureaucrat with the Finance department sent out a mass email across government asking organizations to retweet messages about the announcement using the hashtag #StrongFamilies.

“We ask that your organization re-tweet the Department of Finance tweets from @financecanada on the announcement over the following 72 hours,” wrote Jean-Michel Catta, an assistant deputy minister.

“Most of our tweets will contain the hashtags #StrongFamilies ou #Famillesfortes.”

The proposal, which includes income splitting for families with children under 18 and extending the monthly Universal Child Care Benefit to more taxpayers, has not yet received parliamentary approval.