Joan Bryden, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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OTTAWA - The Harper government is compelling cash-strapped municipalities to pay millions for thousands of signs touting the federal economic action plan, Liberals charged Wednesday.

Municipalities must sign an agreement that includes a provision requiring them to produce, erect and pay for economic action plan signs at each project site before they can get a share of the $4 billion federal infrastructure stimulus fund, Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale said.

The cost of most infrastructure projects are shared equally by federal, provincial and municipal governments.

Yet the Liberals said the Harper government is insisting that a separate sign - promoting only the federal contribution - be erected at each site.

"Local tax dollars are being forced to finance Conservative propaganda," Goodale said in the Commons.

"While millions of Canadians cannot get vaccinated (against H1N1 flu), the Conservatives are not only wasting up to $45 million on useless signs but they actually want two signs, not just one, on every project."

Goodale later showed reporters a photograph of a construction site in the nation's capital adorned with two huge signs. One touts the involvement of the City of Ottawa and the Ontario government; the other promotes the federal economic action plan.

"There's the proof," he said.

"They're literally doubling the cost of signage and advertising . . . It's a ridiculous waste of money. It's an abuse of the public purse for the benefit of the Conservative Party of Canada."

Goodale's cost estimate was apparently based on a newspaper report that calculated the cost at anywhere from $5 million to $45 million for 2,500 signs already installed and another 4,000 on order.

Transport and Infrastructure Minister John Baird mocked the Liberal cost estimate, quipping that inflation seems to be gripping the country, "at least when it comes to the inflation of the truth from our Liberal friends."

But he defended the signs, calling them a demonstration that the three levels of government "have put partisan politics aside and are working constructively to create jobs and to build infrastructure."

Baird also touted the signs as proof that "one of the hallmarks of the government is transparency and accountability."

"That is why we think it is incredibly important when we are making investments in communities coast to coast to coast that we inform Canadians of those investments."

Liberals have criticized the government for using its efforts to stimulate the sputtering economy to promote the Conservative party.

They've argued that taxpayer-funded television ads echo partisan Tory messaging. And they've lodged complaints against dozens of Tory MPs who've hand out novelty cheques for infrastructure projects that infer the money came from them personally or from the Conservative party.

Liberals claim taxpayers have paid as much as $100 million for the promotional effort.

Government estimates last spring pegged the cost of advertising the economic action plan at $34 million, spread over four departments.

Estimates released Wednesday added another department - the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic arm of the Prime Minister's Office - and another $3.96 million for "implementation and coordination of a government-wide communications strategy" for the action plan.