Ontario's blue licence plates are now officially collectors' items. Of the 193,000 blue licence plates with the slogans “A Place to Grow” and “Open for Business” issued in 2020, 170,000 are still in circulation according to the Toronto Star. Some drivers are holding on to them, not for sentimental value, but because the plates' visibility defects make it impossible to read due to glare. A legal way for some to avoid those pesky speed cameras.Three months after their introduction, the province's ministry of transport announced it was working with plate manufacturer 3M on a solution. Three years later, the blue plates are being scrapped. But I wouldn't expect the road signs greeting drivers entering the province with “Open for Business” to be changed anytime soon.It's difficult to know how much this plate-flipping will cost Ontario's taxpayers. But the first budget of “Ontario's Government for the People” in 2019 announced that the government had a modernized Trillium logo and adopted a new slogan - Working for You – in an attempt to bring uniformity to the government's numerous brands.The budget included this revealing bit: “Since 2011, the ministries and agencies of the Ontario government wasted more than $2 million on visual identity work that only served to fragment the Ontario government's brand and confuse the public about what it stands for.” It added: “This will be done in a “no-waste” manner to allow different bodies to exhaust their pre-existing brand collateral before adopting the new standard.”Four years later, many government brand identifiers remain unchanged judging from a quick web search, including Employment Ontario, Ontario Parks, Fish and Wildlife.As a marketer, I couldn't agree more with the need to ensure brand consistency by applying a carefully developed brand system. But I've long ago learned that developing a brand identity is the easy, albeit costly part. Getting it adopted across complex, siloed organizations is the near impossible part.As a taxpayer, I see it as an expense that's difficult to justify when the needs elsewhere are so great. I also see it as a blatantly partisan way for a new government to brand itself (Open for Business), rather than a genuine proposition about the services the government provides (Working for You).Ontario has been Yours to Discover since 1973 when Bill Davis' Progressive Conservative government added the slogan to license plates, which until then had no slogans. It's a great way to advertise Ontario as a tourism destination everywhere Ontarians drive their vehicles. Successive governments saw its value and stuck with it until Doug Ford's government saw an opportunity to use an attempt at cleaning up Ontario's brand identity to deliver a message about growth opportunities for individuals and businesses.What's to stop other political parties, once in power, to use government branding for self-promotion? Not much, it seems. Recall the Harper Government's Economic Action Plan. Perhaps the issue will become more important to citizens when the Canada wordmark starts appearing with a freedom-inspired slogan, like New Hampshire's famous “Live Free or Die” motto.Éric Blais is the president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto. He has helped build brands for over 35 years and is a frequent commentator on political marketing, most recently on CBC's Power & Politics.