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By Jordan Press

The government has doled out some $7 million to small cities and towns to help pay for Canada Day celebrations, but the department in charge has only disclosed details about a fraction of that spending.

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And although the money is meant to help Canadians celebrate the red and white, it appears — based on what little information the government has released — that a lot of it goes to ridings that are Tory blue.

Canadian Heritage has approved nearly 1,700 events taking place between June 21 and July 1 — a period that captures National Aboriginal Day, Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, Canadian Multiculturalism Day and, ultimately, Canada Day.

The amounts handed out are small: They can cover anything from cake for a picnic, extra help for small fire departments managing fireworks, to general funding for festivals that attract tens of thousands of visitors.

The department has only made public 130 of those projects — about eight per cent of the total number, based on an analysis by The Canadian Press.