They’re hard to miss, the billboards lining the highway in West Kelowna. But pushback from local pro-choice activist Sophie Harms is forcing one controversial message off the road.
“My concern with these pro-life billboards is that people travelling throughout the Okanagan to Kelowna General Hospital to get a surgical abortion will have to see them, and that’s just not right in my mind,” Harms said.
She first tried to counter the message by pitching her own pro-choice billboard to the four major advertisers in the Okanagan.
“Each of them either did not respond or said something along the lines of it was too controversial,” she said.
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One of those companies, BC Billboards, currently displays anti-abortion ads from the Kelowna Right to Life Society. But with the help of lawyers from the BC Humanist Association, Harms found a way to make her message seen, without putting up a billboard.
“(The lawyers) said that if BC Billboards is publishing pro-life billboards and not mine, then it’s considered sex-based discrimination,” Harms explained.
In an emailed statement, BC Billboards said it would not comment further. However, Harms made public an email from the company confirming it will no longer advertise any anti-abortion or pro-choice billboards, adding that all existing signs will be taken down at the end of their contracts.
“It caught us a little by surprise, but not so much, because for years pro-life messages have been challenged and censored,” said Marlon Bartram, executive director of the Kelowna Right to Life Society.
The billboards are expected to be removed when their contracts expire in six months, and the society says it does not plan to dispute the decision.
“If the billboards aren’t available to us, we’re going to try other means, social media, radio, television, public demonstrations,” Bartram said.
Harms hopes the policy change will ripple beyond West Kelowna and reshape the landscape of billboard messaging across the country.
“I’ve been approached by a couple of people who are upset about the anti-choice billboards in their own towns, and they want to know how I approached it, and what they can do to help their own visual landscapes,” she said.
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