Friends of Canadian Broadcasting conducts ad campaign
By Adnews Staff
Toronto-based advocacy group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has begun an advertising campaign called “Unfriend Facebook.” According to the organization, the campaign is intended to encourage federal politicians to change a tax regulation that subsidizes the price of ads sold by foreign Internet media companies with public money. It consists of newspaper advertising in Postmedia publications including the National Post, The Ottawa Citizen and the Sun line of papers. The campaign will expand to additional publications this week.
“The federal government spends more on subsidies of foreign media companies that pollute our democracy than it spends on the CBC, which upholds it,” said Daniel Bernhard, executive director of the group. “These subsidies to the likes of Facebook are also worth more than 10 times the government's rescue package for print media. This is not a conservative or progressive issue. It's a backbone issue. We are calling on all party leaders close the Internet advertising tax loophole.”