Interim Staff
The Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) and it’s local chapter launched a legal challenge against the city of Hamilton after its transit service rejected one of their advertisements.
Hamilton Street Railway (HSR), the city’s transit service, refused to run ads stating ““We’re for women’s rights” with the word “hers” accompanying photos of girls in her 20s, her teens, as a child and the words “and hers” alongside an ultrasound of a preborn child.
The advertisements were supposed to run when Parliament was debating Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall’s private member’s bill to prohibit sex-selective abortions.
ARPA argues that its right to free expression has been violated.
Tabitha Ewert, legal counsel with We Need a Law, told The Hamilton Spectator, “Women’s rights need to begin at the earliest stages of life.”
The city claims it is working with ARPA on the proposed ad, but in their application for judicial review, ARPA Hamilton and ARPA Canada state that an email from the city says that their staff reviewed the ad and based on the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards’ “accuracy and clarity” clause, the wording “and hers” needed to be changed “so as to not reflect personhood.” Their submission quotes Ali Sabourin, manager of customer experience and innovation for the city’s transit division, suggesting “to revise it to read ‘All Rights’ or other similar wording.”
ARPA’s application said no false claims were made and “The use of personal pronouns to refer to a child before he or she is born is common, easily understood, and not misleading to a reasonable person.”
ARPA argues the city’s rejection of the proposed ad appears “to be based only on philosophical or political disagreement with (their) beliefs and position.”
The city’s legal division, a city spokesman said, “is in the process of responding to the challenge.”
The Spectator got the YWCA Hamilton to respond to ARPA’s ad. Medora Uppal, YWCA director of operations, claimed the proposed ad includes “false information” about women’s rights and abortion because it describes the preborn child as a person, which Uppal said was a “problem.”
In 2019, Hamilton reviewed its advertising policies after its transit service was criticized by pro-abortion activists for running advertisements that stated “Canada has no abortion laws. Seem backwards?” The city said the ads were acceptable under the rules as they stood then but agreed to re-examine their advertising standards and policies in the future. The results of that review have yet to be made public.
