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The Conservative government has spent $20 million on media monitoring contracts since late 2012, with some of the largest on behalf of a Prime Minister’s Office increasingly focused on message control. Monitoring of ethnic media in multicultural communities was of particular importance for the Tories.

The money is being spent at the same time as recently released figures from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show the federal government’s roster of communications staff is more than 3,300 and is expected to cost nearly $263 million this fiscal year.

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Newly released documents show federal departments and agencies have hundreds of media monitoring contracts and subscriptions – covering print, broadcast, online and social media – to help them keep tabs on what and how journalists are reporting on government.

“Monitoring spin is more important to this government than collecting data,” said Liberal finance critic Scott Brison, noting billions of dollars in federal spending cuts have included axing jobs and surveys at Statistics Canada. The federal Liberals requested the media-monitoring information.