The Alberta Government has launched an ad campaign that will spend taxpayers’ money to convince taxpayers…wait for it…to accept the 400$ prosperity bonus. I swear I am not making this up:

Premier Ralph Klein’s office is spending $65,000 on newspaper advertising to persuade Albertans they can accept his prosperity bonus cheques with a clean conscience.

“We want to make sure people realize we’re also doing things for the future,” spokeswoman Marisa Etmanski said as the ads began running Saturday in Edmonton, Calgary and smaller centres across the province.

Klein announced last month that every Albertan will receive $400 by the end of the year out of the province’s expected surplus of at least $6.8 billion. The prosperity bonuses will cost the government $1.4 billion of the surplus, which has ballooned due to rising oil and gas revenues.