The federal government spent $35,000 on focus groups just to evaluate whether newcomers to Canada are aware of the “free” services they’re eligible for—everything from language training to job search help, all funded by taxpayers.

The cost is detailed in a newly released Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool (ACET) report on the federal Newcomer Services campaign, which has been running in various forms since 2009. According to the report, many permanent residents remain unaware of the array of taxpayer-funded settlement benefits available to them.

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“Unfortunately, many newcomers to Canada are unaware of the services that permanent residents can access, free of charge, to help them settle in Canada,” reads the government’s summary of the findings.

Of course, “free of charge” in Liberal-speak means someone else is footing the bill—namely, Canadian taxpayers.

The $35,000 expenditure only covered the research portion of the campaign—namely, focus groups in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal to evaluate the effectiveness of promotional material. The actual cost of running the nationwide ad campaign wasn’t disclosed in the report.

The ad campaign targeted new permanent residents and their families, promoting government-funded services through radio, online, and ethnic media outlets. Ironically, the report admits that despite years of messaging, “many newcomers still remain unaware of the services available to them.”

So naturally, the Liberal Government's solution was… more spending on advertising.

The study also noted that participants trusted messages more when they were labeled as coming directly from the Government of Canada, suggesting a calculated push to legitimize the ads with government branding. One ad was even criticized by test subjects for not using enough taxpayer branding.