Transit System Reconsiders Decision to Ban Vegetarian Ads

By Doug Draper

Chalk one up for the vegetarians of the region.

One of Niagara’s largest transit systems will be reviewing its recent decision to ban ads promoting a vegetarian diet over eating meat on its buses.

“I don’t find them offensive,” St. Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan has told Niagara At Large of the ads Niagara Action For Animals (NAFA) is prepare to pay to display on buses owned and operated by his city’s transit commission.
 
“These (ads) would trigger a concern for me if they were hateful to an individual or group, or shocking in some way. … But from what I see, they don’t fall into that category and are meant to be thought-provoking and challenging,” said the mayor.

“I believe the staff at the St. Catharines Transit may have over-reacted and created a controversy where one did not need to be created,” added one of the city’s councillors, Andrew Gill, who sits on the transit commission and has called for a review of the ban at one of its next meetings.

David Sherlock, the transit system’s general manager, told Niagara At Large for an earlier posting that he and his staff “exercised (their) right” not to display the ads out of feelings that member of the public may find they “politically sensitive” and “controversial.”

NAFA, a long-time volunteer organization dedicated to animal welfare in the region, went the media earlier this January after it learned that the transit system’s administration had said no to ads that ask the public why they would love a pig or a dog and eat a pig or a chicken or cow.
 
Kimberly Costello, a spokesperson for NAFA, said the group went out of its way to make sure the images of the animals would not be disturbing. There was the option of showing the animals being slaughtered for meat, she added, but the organization decided to stay away from anything like that.

Niagara At Large is posting an enlarged image of one of the ads in question below.

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