The National Post is reporting that the Department of National Defence has spent $438,385 on “promotional pucks, sports jerseys, plastic wrist bands and golf balls” over the past five years, spending more than four times what every single other government department and agency spent on those items during that time span.  The damages include:

• over $238,000 in rubber bracelets and silicone wrist bands
• $176,000 on more than 100,000 hockey pucks
• $23,000 on jerseys (no word as to how many Gretzkys were purchased)
• just over $3,000 on 90 boxes of golf balls

What’s scariest is that this spending spree really only took place over three years, as the Post reports “there was only one purchase of such promotional material from 2011 to 2012, as organizations were directed to use existing inventory.”  Seems to me they had enough “inventory” to last for quite a while…

Now, it sounds like they got a pretty good deal on pucks at a buck-seventy-five apiece, but did they really need 100-grand of them?  Apparently they gave out the rubber at NHL games, but I can safely say I never received one—mind you I only attend one Leafs game a year when the Flames are in town.  In any case, 100K pucks is enough to give one to each and every ticketholder of five sellout games at the ACC—and still have 6,000 pucks left over.  And that’s assuming everyone grabs a puck.  I take it they didn’t have too many takers at le Centre Bell…

While it’s clear that the Conservatives want to expand the Armed Forces to have an abundance of potential pilots for their flashy fleet of F-35s, I’m not sure that spending almost half a mil on pucks and bracelets is the best way to do so.  I know that a free hockey puck would not lead me to the nearest recruitment station, that’s for sure!