The owners of the billboards, Pattison Outdoor Advertising, who had rented the space because that's how they build the empire of Canadian business magnut and philanthropist Jimmy Pattison, caved to pressure from the enforcers of diversity and inclusion, and cancelled the contracts, after first telling the pro-immigration whiners "Nothing to do with us. Take it up with the People's Party, or True North Strong and Free Advertising Corp. It's their ad!"
Apparently that's what the multiculti advocates did. After being on the wrong end of a barrage of phone calls, e-mails, texts, tweets etc etc, True North folded like a cheap accordion, and sought to distance itself from the message, saying it never signed off on the campaign. "We completely disavow any sympathy with or support for the views expressed by donors who paid for and selected the content of their advertising, which we were mistakenly not afforded an opportunity to first approve," Frank Smeenk, the head of True North Strong & Free Advertising Corp., wrote in an email to The Canadian Press on Monday.
So True North just bought the space, eh. Had no idea what the ads were going to say? Had no hand in designing and printing them? Who's running True North? The three wise monkeys? Walt wonders if Mr Smeenk knows the old line, "Don't shoot me! I'm only the piano player!"
For his part, People's Party leader Maxime Bernier said at his national campaign launch on Sunday that, although the PPC did not place or pay for the signs, he agrees with the message. On Monday, he called Pattison's decision to take the billboards an act of censorship. "The message on the billboard is not controversial for two-thirds of Canadians who agree with it, and for those who disagree but support free speech and an open discussion," he tweeted. "It's only controversial for the totalitarian leftist mob who want to censor it."
Further reading:
"How a 'leftist mob' handed Mad Max a pre-election gift", by Colby Cosh (no arch-conservative he!) in Canada's National Post, 27/8/19. Excerpt: "The billboard didn’t say that immigrants are horrid. It didn’t say anything for or against ethnic diversity, which Bernier has praised in the past while objecting to its elevation to cult status. It didn’t propose throwing anybody out of Canada. It is a plea against a long-standing policy of mass immigration."
"Bernier billboards shouldn't have come down based on mob rule", by Brian Lilley, in the Toronto Sun, 27/8/19. Excerpt: "This week we are supposed to be outraged that billboards went up across the country in support of Maxime Bernier’s position on immigration. The fact that these billboards are now coming down is a reason for us to applaud a progressive company I’m told. Okay, I don’t get it. Either we believe in free speech and open political debate or we don’t."
And from Yours Very Truly:
"Canada's 'independent' Debate Commission shuts out Max Bernier", WWW 12/8/19. Walt asks: What are the Canadian lefties and their (((controlled media))) afraid of? Could it be that they know that uncontrolled immigration is going to be the big ballot issue in the upcoming election? And that Canucks who are sick, sore and tired of "welcoming" 1000s of third-world "refugees" will vote for the only party taking a stand against it? That would be the People's Party, and only the People's Party.
