Complaint against Tim Hortons is misguided
While the coalition obviously means well, its action seems a little misguided
At the risk of having my Canadian citizenship revoked, I must confess: I don’t much care for Tim Hortons. Not its coffee, which is fine if you’re really out of options, nor its sickly sweet doughnuts — which cause my blood sugar to spike just by looking at them — nor its increasingly bizarre jazzing up of the perfectly humble bagel. (The words “Jalapeno Asiago Mozzarella” simply do not belong next to “bagel,” especially not in this city.)
I will, admittedly, scarf down a Timbit if they’re going around the office, but I’m only human, after all. That’s why it pains me a little to leap to Tim Hortons’s defence today.
In Wednesday’s National Post, Montreal bureau chief Graeme Hamilton reported on a complaint filed with l’Office de la protection du consommateur by a Quebec anti-obesity group called La Coalition Québécoise sur la problématique du poids (or Coalition Poids, for short).
Its target: Tim Hortons advertising that is featured prominently throughout the “multi-sports zone” at Montreal’s Fête des Neiges, where kids are invited to play ball hockey, snow soccer and take part in a human-size foosball table game. (Tim Hortons is the title sponsor of the Fête des Neiges, which wraps up this weekend at Parc Jean-Drapeau).
Coalition Poids — which earlier in the week joined several other health organizations in demanding that the Quebec government place warning labels on sugary drinks — is accusing Tim Hortons of violating sections 248 and 249 of Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act, which “prohibits commercial advertising directed at children under 13 years of age.” (The coalition has been busy these days; it also filed a complaint against the Quebec dairy producer Natrel for giving out chocolate milk at Quebec’s Carnaval last weekend.)
The ban, which was implemented in 1980, and has held up against legal challenges going all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, is the only one of its kind in North America. Just last fall, following a complaint by the coalition in 2013, Coca-Cola pleaded guilty to breaching Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act by sponsoring a water park at La Ronde called the Fanta Zone — named after the company’s fruity soft drink — festooned with the soda’s logo and colours. (It paid a $27,000 fine as a result).
“I have no problem with Tim Hortons encouraging kids to play outside, but when they use aggressive advertising to place their products, that’s where I have an ethical problem,” Corinne Voyer, the director of Coalition Poids, told the Post, adding that it is “compiling a file” of other Tim Hortons-sponsored events and programs over which it plans to file complaints.
While the coalition obviously means well — after all, no one wants junk food stuffed down our kids’ throats, literally or figuratively — its latest action seems a little misguided.
Tim Hortons has for years, through its Timbits Minor Sports Program, financed children’s sports and physical fitness initiatives throughout the country. The company says it supports 300,000 children age four to nine who take part in such programs. And given the sad reality of the “austerity” ethos that seems to have caught on with governments big and small throughout the country, it’s not a stretch to say that many of those kids wouldn’t be able to take part in these types of badly-needed activities without the contributions of corporations like Tim Hortons.
Context is also important here, and it’s essential that we make a clear distinction between sponsoring an activity geared toward children and targeting those children with advertising, the latter being what is forbidden in Quebec.
At the Fête des Neiges activities that caught Coalition Poids’s attention, there are no Timbits or other sugar-loaded Tim Hortons’s products to be had, only coffee served to parents, whom I strongly suspect are grateful for the caffeination. Having the Tim Hortons logo on rink boards, billboards and jerseys and equipment, while undeniably a form of advertising — and a smart one — strikes me as being directed not toward the kids taking part in the fun, but the substantial number of parents who are an integral part of such events, and who are obviously a major consumer of many of the company’s offerings.
Do watchdog organizations such as Coalition Poids need to be vigilant of such programs to make sure there’s nothing more nefarious going on? Of course, as we should be of what we feed our young children and where we take them to eat, the ultimate responsibility for which still lies with parents. But we also need to make sure our well-intentioned zeal to protect our children doesn’t discard worthy initiatives that can contribute to their wellness.