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Feds to spend millions on custom news stories, tweets and Facebook posts

FILE - . Gurinder Osan/AP Photo

HALIFAX – The federal government is looking to spend millions on advertorials, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

The investments are outlined in two documents published Wednesday on the Canadian government’s procurement site.

One document states Health Canada will hire a contractor to write and post pictures on government social media accounts. The posts would help inform parents and teens on a variety of topics including healthy eating, bullying, drugs and pregnancy.

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The budget for the social media campaign is capped at $590,000, the document states.

A second document offers notice that next year the government will spend $1,250,000 on customized news stories.

The sole-sourced contract will pay News Canada to “provide feature news production, distribution, monitoring and analysis services to inform and educate Canadians on public issues.”

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News Canada provides copyright-free content for print, online and broadcast news outlets. Each story is free to publish but contains information sponsored by private companies.

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The document states News Canada will write news stories on behalf of the federal government for two years, with an option to extend the contract to a third year.

The maximum total cost for three years of advertorial writing, plus social media posting is $4,340,000.

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