Heather Scoffield, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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OTTAWA - The federal government has launched a massive stimulus exercise, spending $16 billion over two years to create jobs and pull Canada out of recession.

The money is being spent with unprecedented speed, and flurries of news releases have been issued. At the same time, there is a lack of full information about where and how the money is being spent.

Details on some programs have become available, but Tory MPs have warned against jumping to any conclusions because none of the details shows the full program.

To get a thorough, national analysis of the spending, The Canadian Press turned to a government-created interactive map that claims to compile spending announcements from a wide range of stimulus programs. The map, at www.actionplan.gc.ca/eng/map.asp, contains instructions on how to download precise data for 4,833 projects.

The analysis correlated the data on the projects with ridings across the country, using additional software. The project total included everything posted on the map as of Oct. 25.

The projects on the map do not contain exact spending amounts. Rather, they are divided into small (under $100,000), medium ($100,000 to $1 million), large ($1 million to $5 million) and extra-large (over $5 million).

To tally the value of projects and compare riding to riding, small projects were given one point, medium projects three points, large projects seven points and extra-large projects 10 points. While the extra-large projects are more than 10 times the economic value of small projects, the small projects carry a high political value.

The methodology "sounds pretty good," says Kevin Milligan, an associate professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, and an established expert on pork-barrel politics. "It sounds like you have a good-sized pool, without these urban or rural biases."