The Finance Department is turning to Twitter to deliver its message in bite-sized chunks of 140 characters or less.
The department plans to begin tweeting when the Finance Minister Jim Flaherty rises in the House of Commons to deliver his latest budget on March 4.
Links to relevant portions of the budget will be tweeted in real time.
Mr. Flaherty says the Conservative government wants to “reach out to inform Canadians of actions” his government's taking to support the economy.
The minister says social media will bring the government message to Canadians in a “new, cost-effective and convenient way.”
The department will post links to news releases, advisories, major speeches, publications and reports on the Twitter site.
Created in 2006, Twitter is a free social-networking and microblogging service on which users send and read messages known as tweets, or text-based posts of up to 140 characters.
CEO Evan Williams has called Twitter an information network that “tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world.”
