New 9/11 conspiracy ads spark ‘review’ of advertising policy
Commission officials debate accepting ads people find offensive
New ads promoting conspiracy theories about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, are coming to buses in December, activists told Ottawa’s transit commission Wednesday.
“Have you seen the video of World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse?” they’ll say, according to a spokeswoman for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Isabelle Beenen. They’ll pose questions about the lesser-known building’s tidy implosion — it collapsed after the much taller “twin towers” nearby — and direct interested readers to a website.
The new round of ads (which are also planned for Toronto’s transit system, Beenen said) follows a controversial first set that “9/11 truthers” bought this year to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. It has prompted a “review” of OC Transpo’s policy on accepting advertising, a review the transit commission voted to start Wednesday. Beenen addressed the commission about the legitimacy of her group’s case before commission chair Diane Deans ruled her out of order because she wasn’t talking strictly about the advertising policy.
The transit commission is struggling with the idea that accepting advertising sometimes means accepting advertising that some people don’t like. Coun. Stephen Blais finds the ads offensive because they refer to an event that sent Canada to war in Afghanistan, a war in which his brother fought, for instance.
The review’s official purpose is to make sure that OC Transpo’s fairly freewheeling policy on accepting ads on buses is in keeping with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and relevant judicial decisions.
A city lawyer told the commission that there’s never been any indication that it isn’t. But the commissioners voted for the review anyway, just to be sure.