Ottawa man posts ads in local bus shelters

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This article was published 05/12/2014 (3969 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An Ottawa-area dentist has decided to protest against Ontario’s funding of its separate school system by buying ad space in bus shelters — in Winnipeg?

That’s what Richard Thain has done. Thain has spent $10,000 of his own money to put up posters in bus shelters around the city criticizing Ontario’s system of funding schools.

Admittedly, says Thain, bus shelters weren’t his first choice, but Winnipeg was always where he wanted the advertising.

“I saw some of the government ads announcing the opening of this wonderful human rights museum in Winnipeg and I thought it was great,” Thain said on Thursday.

“I thought, because the issue of public funding of Ontario’s separate school system is a human rights issue, that I would put up a single billboard about the issue near the museum so when people from around the world came to its opening they would see it.”

But Thain said when he took the billboard concept to an advertising company it was rejected, and he found out all its billboards were already booked.

So Thain went to another advertising company, which agreed to put up the ads in bus shelters.

“People ask me, wouldn’t it have been better to put them up in bus shelters near Queen’s Park, but I continued with my original thought of putting them up near the museum.”

Thain said Ontario residents should only pay the costs of a public secular school system and discontinue funding the province’s separate school system.

The advertisements show a child with his arm raised with slogans including “Shame on Canada!”

Museum spokeswoman Maureen Fitzhenry said the CMHR has no comment on the merits of Thain’s advertising campaign.

But Fitzhenry said the advertising campaign may be a positive sign for the museum.

“If it shows awareness of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg is growing and therefore Winnipeg is a good place to come or have conversations about human rights matters; that is a good thing for everyone.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca