Tories Outraged at Own In-Game Advertising

New Democrats in Canada are locked in a new war of words with the ruling Conservative party - over the advertising of government campaigns in games such as Need For Speed: ProStreet.

The Tories are saying that the one-month campaign - which cost the collective Canadian taxpayer $30,000 - has been effective in targeting young males between the ages of 18-34 for its 2010 apprenticeship drive.

But the NDP is highlighting the irony of placing adverts in a game that "promotes street racing," an apparent contradiction with the government's stance on such matters.

"I almost sprayed my coffee across the table,” New Democrat MP Pat Martin said to the Toronto Sun. "Clearly they didn’t do any diligence in where they put these ads, or they would have seen the contradictions."

The adverts appears in 43 games and were seen some 20 million times, reports the newspaper. The Conservative response? Ryan Sparrow, director of communications for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley: "It is interesting that the NDP's only tough-on-crime policies relate to video games and not real life."

Oh, burn.