I will update more on this later, but for now it seems the Freethought Association of Canada put feelers out to see if Edmonton’s bus advertising agency (Pattison, who also manage all billboards in the city) would allow atheist bus ads.
Pattison apparently replied (as I learned from an interview I just did with the Edmonton Journal) that they don’t run ads of this sort and tend to stick to ads that sell a product.
This is garbage however, as there are countless anti-abortion ads around the city and several church ads.
As I said, I’ll write more later (likely tomorrow), and I’m going to do some recon with my camera phone tonight and see what ads I can find. Tomorrow there should be an Edmonton Journal article on this, so we’ll have a bit more investigation and quotes to use anyways (I said that we haven’t formulated a response and that I’m going to get feedback from my members first).
We had no real plans in Edmonton to run atheist ads, but with this news I’ve already found out most of my group is riled up over the double standard.
And here I thought with the convocation issue closed that we could get a bit of a break in Edmonton. I guess atheism is in the spotlight again.
(It’s also worth noting that Calgary will be running the ads in the next few months).
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Oh, they do most of the billboards too? Because I know for sure that I saw Knights of Columbus “Keep Christ in Christmas” billboards
Pattison does virtually all of the billboards here. Once you spot their name (usually in the lower-right of the ledge in front of the larger billboards), you’ll see it everywhere.
The ones I recall are all Edmonton Catholic School Boards ads, though I admit I haven’t been looking for non-“product” ads. (Define “product” here — services obviously count, since there are bar ads everywhere, but then there are ads for things that provide nothing physical at all to those who partake, like radio stations.)
Had to laugh when I read your headline, Ian: No no god ads in Edmonton
Er, does that mean, ‘Yes, there will be god ads in Edmonton’? Or so I mused until after reading your post.
‘Twas the double negative that tripped me up.
Time to round up the troops Ian
nothing better to do on a Thursday night?
Come on man, its reading week lol