PETA Takes the City of Toronto and Astral Media to Court

City’s Ad Agency Unlawfully Removed Bus Shelter Ads Blasting Vile Fur-and-Feather Jackets, PETA Says

For Immediate Release:
March 14, 2019

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

Today, PETA submitted an application for judicial review to the Ontario Divisional Court demanding that the city of Toronto and Astral Media Outdoor replace ads that were unlawfully taken down in September 2018. The application alleges that the city violated PETA’s Charter right to free expression by removing PETA’s ads, which call for a boycott of Canada Goose and point out that the company turns sentient animals into jacket stuffing and collar trim.

Astral Media Outdoor initially posted PETA’s ads on several bus shelters owned by the city of Toronto between Canada Goose’s headquarters and the home of the company’s CEO, Dani Reiss. The ads showed a coyote proclaiming, “I’m a Living Being, Not a Piece of Fur Trim,” and a goose stating, “I’m a Living Being, Not Jacket Filling,” above the words “Boycott Canada Goose.” But the ad agency took down the ads within a day of posting them.

“Censoring PETA’s message that geese and coyotes are individuals who don’t deserve to be tormented and violently killed for Canada Goose jackets is an egregious violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA wants our ads to be restored and Astral and the city of Toronto not to violate anyone’s freedom of expression again.”

A PETA video exposé reveals that workers at a Canada Goose down supplier rounded up terrified geese who piled on top of one another in an attempt to escape, causing suffocation and death. Workers grabbed birds by their necks and crammed them into cages so small that they couldn’t sit up or extend their wings. Coyotes used for Canada Goose’s fur trim can suffer in painful steel traps for days before they’re shot or bludgeoned to death. Trapped coyote mothers desperate to get back to their starving pups have even tried to chew through their own limbs to escape.

A wide variety of top brands—including HoodLamb, NOIZE, Save the Duck, For All Kind, and Wuxly Movement—sell warm, stylish, vegan coats that no animal had to suffer and die for.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, which is a belief in human supremacy that views other species as commodities. For more information, please visit PETA.org.