Tom Adams and Randal Marlin

March 18, 2002

March 18, 2002

Advertising Standards Canada
350 Bloor Street East, Suite 402
Toronto, Ontario M4W 1H5

Dear Sirs:

We wish to place a formal complaint against the Globe and Mail‘s use of what we see as disguised advocacy advertising in its six page "Special Supplement on Ontario’s New Electricity Market," appearing in the Monday, March 11, 2002, issue.

Nowhere is there an indication that the material mimicking journalistic content outside the ads was paid for and controlled by the advertizers. An inquiry by one of the undersigned, Tom Adams, to the Premier’s office indicated that the government paid a portion of the cost. In a separate interview by Mr. Adams with the office of the Energy Minister, the government claimed most of the cost was borne by the companies, two of which are commercial firms owned by the Ontario government, taking ads in the supplement.

The Canadian Code of Advertising Standards states under section 2 that "No advertisement shall be presented in a format or style which conceals its commercial intent." It also states under 1(b) "Advertisements must not omit relevant information which, in the result, is deceptive." Thirdly, section 1(f) states that the advertiser in an advocacy advertisement "must be clearly identified as the advertiser in either or both the audio or video portion of the advocacy advertisement." We see no reason why the principle embodied in 1(f) should not, constructively, also apply to print media.

The authorship of the ads in the piece is clear but the authorship of the text is not disclosed. According to the office of the Energy Minister, the text was collaboratively developed by the government and the companies buying advertising space.

The typeface in the text and headlines is so similar to the regular type used by the Globe and Mail that the reader could easily get the impression that the material was coming from a journalistic source. The customary statement "an advertising supplement" which normally appears is absent, and instead we have "a special supplement on Ontario’s new electricity market."

The material is presented as straightforward fact, but it really contains advocacy instead of facts on certain key issues, as can be seen from the following:

The piece contains a bolded subhead claiming that "Customer protection is paramount." Three instances where actions by the Ontario government and its agencies have been directly contrary to the interests of ordinary consumers are the decisions on distribution rate increases for local distribution utilities, the decision to cross-subsidize the transmission costs of heavy industrial users, and the government’s decision to break its promise to stop providing special electricity subsidies to heavy industry.

The piece also relies on exaggerated claims. Jim Wilson, Ontario Minister of Energy, Science and Technology is quoted as saying that "$3-billion in new generation projects . . . have already been proposed by the private sector," and that this new generation capacity will support "jobs, investment and economic growth." There is no acknowledgment in the material that with only a few exceptions, the announced projects have been substantially delayed and some may even be canceled.

Our complaint is specifically against the Globe and Mail for carrying this material in violation of the Code and against the Government of Ontario for using this form of advocacy advertising.

We hope to hear from you soon as to whether you uphold our complaint.

Yours truly,

Tom Adams, Energy Probe, Executive Director
Randal Marlin, Carleton University
Adjunct Professor Department of Philosophy