@noel.semple7 Should hard liquor banner ads be allowed on this neighbourhood corner?
Text:
One of the biggest questions we face as a society is, how can we make capitalism work for all of us and not just for the capitalists? Some people honestly believe the answer to that question is “we can’t.” But I disagree, because if you look back through human history, all of the times and places where it’s been best to live as a human being are those in which capitalism has been combined with regulation, redistribution of income and social programs.
Capitalism is a goose that lays golden eggs, but government has got to make sure that that goose doesn’t bite people and has got to make sure that the golden eggs are enjoyed by all of us and not just by a privileged elite. This, incidentally, is a major theme of my new book, The State of happiness, which is coming out this fall.
I was thinking about this today when I was driving by this strip mall at the corner of Bloor and Kipling
here in beautiful central Etobicoke because the landlord has rented out space on the fence that goes around the strip mall to these advertisers.
So there’s eight advertising banners that have been attached to the fence here. And advertising and the regulation of it is a small but an interesting part of this bigger question of how we make capitalism work for all of us. Advertising has a healthy function in a free-market, capitalist economy because it lets consumers know what’s available and it promotes competition, which in turn leads to lower prices,
higher quality and more choice. And that’s why advertising or “commercial speech,” as it’s known to lawyers, is protected in many cases by our Constitution. But governments also have the legal right and the moral obligation to regulate advertising and in some cases to forbid it.
I’ve talked on this channel before about the need to ban ads for internet gambling, which is a dangerous, highly addictive product which targets young people. And I think our government is asleep at the switch
if it thinks we can just have unregulated, free-for-all advertising for that particular product.
I think these billboards at 3810 Bloor street west are an interesting case study for healthy and unhealthy advertising. Four of these banner ads advertise businesses which are actually in the plaza. And they let us consumers know what’s available and they help our local small business entrepreneurs thrive.
But two of these ads are very different. First of all, they’re for liquor, which like internet gambling, is a addictive product.
And more importantly, they are here right in the middle of the neighbourhood. And yet they do not promote or let us know about our local businesses. They are for selling things where the profits are going to be captured by large multinational corporations. And I think if we’re looking for a place to draw the line for what type of ads, we should be allowing on a street corner. We could start by saying that anything for local businesses is okay, but if you’re advertising some consumer product that’s is gonna be sold elsewhere where the profits are gonna go elsewhere and the only real value of it is adding a little bit of money for the landlord’s bottom line, especially when it’s for something dangerous and addictive like alcohol, then, that would be the type of banner that we should not necessarily allow.
And so I’m gonna look into this. I’m sure there’s laws and bylaws about this and I’ll keep you postedon my efforts to see why this is allowed and if perhaps it’s something that should be removed.