Dr Richard Thain of Ottawa launched a two-week ad campaign in Toronto on Monday March 19, 2018 supporting One Public Education Now (OPEN) and Civil Rights in Public Education (CRIPE). The purpose of the ads was to garner support for a lawsuit they are planning — a Charter challenge — to bring equality to public education and end the expensive public funding of the separate school system. The plaintiffs are in place — a teacher and a parent — who have been discriminated against on the basis of religion. https://open.CRIPEweb.org. Politicians can ignore letters and phone calls from constituents and try to hide from this issue, but it is more difficult to ignore a lawsuit. The ads were shown on dozens of OUTFRONT Media’s digital billboards in the Toronto area and had over six million views (pedestrian and vehicular).
Thain had a different experience with an ad campaign in September, 2014. The bus ads he had scheduled to be run during the period of the opening of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg were denied at the last minute. He was told, “in our opinion, they may be in violation of the Ad Council Guidelines.” He was not told what words or phrases were in violation.
https://humanistperspectives.org/issue191/index.html
Thain has retained the Winnipeg law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP to represent him in a Charter challenge against City of Winnipeg/Winnipeg Transit/Pattison Outdoor Advertising for denying his fundamental freedom of expression.
The present school funding system in Ontario is an international embarrassment, a financial disaster and a moral disgrace.