1 week ago
Swift News
A dispute over abortion messaging on high-profile billboards in the West Kelowna, B.C., area has led to a major policy shift at a company that controls many of the signs.
B.C. Billboards said it will no longer display ads supporting or opposing abortion, after a pro-choice advocate challenged its long-standing practice of selling billboard ad space for the Kelowna Right to Life Society's anti-abortion campaigns.
The decision came after Sophie Harms, a local pro-choice advocate, tried earlier this year to purchase billboard space for her own message.
Harms approached B.C. Billboards and Pattison Outdoor Advertising, the two companies that sell ad space for billboards located along the sides of Highway 97 on Westbank First Nation land near West Kelowna.
However, both companies eventually refused her request.
Pattison cited a policy of not accepting ads involving controversial topics such as abortion, and Harms said B.C. Billboards did not respond to her request at the time and later refused her, despite the company's history of allowing anti-abortion billboards.