By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-12-18 16:51:03 | Updated at 2024-12-18 20:13:43
3 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Citing backlash and “risk of public complaints,” a Canadian billboard company has canceled service to a pro-life organization that wanted to advertise an image depicting a pregnant woman and the words “Celebrate the Gift of Life”.
Pattison Outdoor Advertisements informed Life Culture of the decision to cancel the contract less than a week after it had agreed to provide the service, according to a Dec. 11 article in True North Wire.
In an email addressed to Life Culture Executive Susan Penner, the cancellation notice stated, “Susan, I regret to inform you that my compliance department will not allow your creative to post on our inventory. The category of the content is pro-life/pro-choice, and it simply creates too much controversy for us.”
Penner requested further information on the decision, given that Life Culture had worked with the billboard company last year.
A company representative explained that throughout 2024, Pattison Outdoor “encountered a lot of backlash for similar designs,” according to True North Wire.
“Our compliance department has had to expand our restrictions,” the email read. “We cannot take the risk of public complaints.”
In speaking out about the cancellation, Penner said she was not intending to “go on a witch hunt” against Pattison Outdoor, True North Wire reported, but rather meant to inform others that companies are not providing service over something now considered “controversial” — celebrating pregnancy.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms President John Carpay said that the pro-life company might be able to file a human rights complaint over the issue, citing discrimination, according to True North Wire. It is not apparent whether Penner’s company will take legal action.
