When Toronto’s public transit agency became the first in North America to ban tobacco advertising on buses, subways and streetcars in 1980, an industry group accused it of “knuckling under” to the anti-smoking lobby.

Scientific studies since the 1960s had exposed the public to the dangers of smoking. But advertisers making money on cigarette billboards said tobacco was a legally manufactured and taxed product they should be able to promote.

By the end of the 1980s, as the connection between second-hand smoke and lung cancer became more widely known, the federal government moved to outlaw tobacco advertising nationwide. This time, a tobacco firm took the government to court, saying the ad ban violated “commercial freedom of speech.”

“The free flow of information about available consumer choice is as central to economic democracy as free speech about political choices is to a political democracy,” said one tobacco executive during a 1988 press conference, according to a news story from that time in the Toronto Star.

An anti-smoking group quickly countered that freedom of speech shouldn’t allow tobacco companies to say misleading things about their products.

Cigarette ads only showed the positive aspects of smoking, the group noted, while for years the industry had denied its products were linked to disease.

The tobacco industry’s legal efforts initially succeeded in delaying the legislation. But the federal government re-introduced restrictions on tobacco advertising and sponsorships that were finally upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.

The court found that, while the ban did violate freedom of expression, the violation was reasonably justified as it dealt with “nothing less than a matter of life or death for millions of people who could be affected.”

Today, environmental advocates say the decades-old fight to ban tobacco ads has laid the groundwork for outlawing advertising promoting fossil fuels.

“The reasoning is quite similar,” William van Geest, interim executive director of nonprofit Ecology Ottawa, told The Narwhal.

“When we’re burning fossil fuels, that is a direct threat to public health.”

---

The TTC led the way in banning cigarette ads

This year, city councillors, public transit agencies and advertising officials in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa took steps towards introducing rules to restrict or more heavily screen fossil fuel ads destined for buses, trains or hockey arenas.

And Toronto’s transit agency is once again forging the path. In September, the board of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) directed agency staff to pre-screen new ads from two pro-oil and gas groups.

That was followed by Toronto city council’s order to staff in October to report on a possible draft fossil fuel ad ban next year.

“The TTC was a leader, it was the first transit network in North America to ban cigarette advertising,” Leah Temper, director of the health and economic policy program at Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, said in an interview.

“We’re really happy to see that they’re also taking similar leadership to protect public health on this issue, and to stop the flow of disinformation that’s been coming to the public and that’s been plastered on their buses and their transit network.”

The movement has been helped by new federal greenwashing rules, meant to crack down on misleading environmental claims made to the public that came into effect this summer. The new rules put the onus on the advertiser to be able to prove its claims can be substantiated.

At the same time, some oil and gas industry representatives and at least one of the industry’s advertising allies are pushing back against the potential bans. Their arguments are similar to the ones the tobacco industry put forward in the 1980s.

Fossil fuel ad bans would “stifle public discussion” and cut off information about the “value and global importance” of Canadian energy sources, said the Canada Action Coalition, a nonprofit group that promotes the oil and gas industry and that has advertised on Toronto transit.

Climate action advocates, in turn, are raising familiar rebuttals. Ads promoting oil and gas use are misleading, says the physicians association, because they ignore the many public health crises created by fossil fuels.

And they come from a sector that, like the tobacco industry, has for years denied that the use of its products has been tied to some deadly consequences.

‘Climate change is an unprecedented threat to people in Toronto’: city councillor

Canada Action Coalition and the Pathways Alliance, an industry lobby group representing six large oilsands companies, were targeted by the TTC after Toronto city councillor Dianne Saxe, an environmental lawyer and former provincial environment commissioner who sits on the agency’s board, raised the issue in September.

Canada Action spent $14,625 from January to the end of August on Toronto transit ads, municipal data shows. The ads delivered a pro-industry message.

One photo posted on social media shows a Toronto streetcar passing a busy downtown intersection. A giant Canada Action ad reads, “As long as the world needs oil and gas, it should be Canadian.”

Saxe’s motion calls out Canada Action for posting “misleading” ads promoting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in British Columbia, citing an interim ruling by Ad Standards, which administers the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards.

“Climate change is an unprecedented threat to people in Toronto and worldwide, with overwhelming consequences, especially for the most vulnerable, ” Saxe’s motion states.

The Narwhal asked Canada Action for reaction to Saxe’s motion and to efforts in other cities to restrict fossil fuel ads, whether the group had any plans to continue buying ad space and how it saw commentators drawing a parallel with tobacco ad bans in the 1980s and 1990s.

In response, Canada Action founder Cody Battershill said in a statement that municipal efforts to restrict fossil fuel ads “stifle public discussion and awareness about the value and global importance of all sources of Canadian energy.”

These efforts “seek to further divide the public on important issues of public interest around Canada’s natural resource abundance, and how that makes life more affordable for all Canadians,” Battershill continued.

“This is a good example of continued attempts to mislead the public about global energy consumption, and the reality that numerous countries around the world have been asking for Canadian oil and natural gas,” he wrote.

“Supporting wind, solar, hydro, nuclear power, oil and natural gas all at the same time is the pragmatic approach to meet growing global energy demand while making sure that Canada is both energy and economically secure.”

The question of international demand for Canadian oil and gas came to a head two years ago when Europe was facing an energy crisis after Russia scaled up its invasion of Ukraine. That year Canada held talks with Germany over whether Canada could be an alternative source for shipping fossil fuels to Europe.

But in September this year, Germany’s climate envoy travelled to Canada and warned Europe’s need for fuel is set to shrink. Meanwhile, analysts at Royal Bank of Canada now expect a wave of new gas supply to oversaturate the market for years.

And while Canada’s petroleum industry contributed 6.1 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2023, according to the federal government, evidence suggests the climate crisis, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is making life less affordable for Canadians. Scientists say climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of weather-related disasters like floods, wildfires, droughts and heat waves, all of which are driving up the cost of insurance and often require costly cleanup that can reach tens of billions of dollars.

The oilsands group, the Pathways Alliance, spent $154,000 on TTC ads in 2023, according to municipal data. The ads promoted the group’s ambition to build technology to capture emissions from the oilsands and said the six companies were “making clear strides toward net zero.” Similar ads from the organization have offered Canadians the chance to “clear the air.”

That message became the basis of a complaint to the federal Competition Bureau alleging the group misled people, as the companies have no plans to end oil production and their net-zero pledge only applies to their production process, not the fossil fuels they make. The group has said it disagrees with the assertions in the complaint.

The Pathways Alliance did not respond to a request for comment from The Narwhal. But the group sent a statement to the Canadian Press arguing they have a role to play in “important conversations about the environment and resource development.”

“We remain committed to communicating, including use of advertising, on behalf of the oilsands industry and the hundreds of thousands of Canadians working in our industry,” president Kendall Dilling told the news agency.

Temper, of the physicians association, said Canadians are “fed up” with contradictory communications.

“They’re choking on smoke, and they’re looking at these ads saying that fossil fuel companies are going to clear the air. So how do you live with this cognitive dissonance?” she asked.

---

Ads from oil companies ‘makes me sick,’ says Montreal councillor

In Montreal, the city’s public transit agency asked the organization that handles its advertising to put in place new rules to examine fossil fuel ads, a spokesperson told The Narwhal.

Éric Alan Caldwell, a city councillor and board chair for the transit agency, Société de transport de Montréal, has also made it clear he’s against fossil fuel advertising on the city’s buses and subways.

“We don’t like oil company ads,” Caldwell told La Presse, speaking in French. “We don’t want them, and personally, it makes me sick.”

Charles Gratton, assistant general manager for Transgesco, which handles ads for Montreal’s transit agency, said the organization will examine whether fossil fuel ads comply with laws like the federal greenwashing provisions.

“Transgesco put in place a mechanism last spring to ensure that the advertising selected not only complies with the legislative framework in place, but also takes into account the values held by the Société de transport de Montréal,” Gratton said in a written statement to The Narwhal.

“We wish to contribute to the financing of public transit in a responsible manner, which is why it is so important to establish clear guidelines against greenwashing practices in advertising.”

Montreal’s transit agency is facing pressure over the ads following the decision last year by bike-sharing company BIXI to remove a Pathways Alliance ad, after residents complained.

Ottawa’s anti-tobacco policy seen as ‘precedent’ for fossil fuel ad ban

In Ottawa, a city council committee asked staff earlier this year to produce a report examining the appropriateness of pro-fossil fuel advertising at city facilities.

Canada’s capital city has declared a climate emergency and has a target of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The push against fossil fuel ads came amid reports from residents who spotted an ad from Canada Action at a popular local hockey arena that said oil and gas is “part of the solution.”

Fossil fuel ads at city arenas brought in $5,459 in 2023, according to information from the office of councillor Shawn Menard, who introduced the motion to review the advertising.

In a newsletter, Menard wrote the arguments he heard in favour of restricting fossil fuel ads were “compelling” and argued the ads “do not comprise a significant source of revenue.”

Recently, pro-oil and gas ads by Canada Action also appeared in downtown Ottawa near Parliament Hill, in areas with high foot traffic.

Ecology Ottawa sent an open letter to the mayor, signed by 15 environmental organizations, that called the city’s current policy against tobacco promotion a “precedent” for a fossil fuel ad ban.

The city “currently bans the promotion of tobacco, under the rubric ‘the city will not solicit or accept sponsorship or advertising from companies whose reputation could prove detrimental to the city’s public image,’ ” notes the letter.

“Allowing the promotion of policies and products on public property that undermine its climate commitments and resiliency to climate change likewise contravenes this policy.”

People in Ottawa have experienced a range of extreme weather driven by climate change in recent years, van Geest of Ecology Ottawa said.

He mentioned the floods that inundated the city in 2017 and 2019, which the municipality linked to the effects of climate change. Then there was the derecho in 2022, a type of windstorm that will become more frequent with climate change.

Last year a tornado tore through the south end of the city, and research says the Ottawa area may be subjected to more frequent twisters. Ottawa also experienced toxic smoke from climate-driven wildfires in 2023.

“Each of these comes with great threats to public health,” van Geest said.

“The ban on tobacco advertising provided a template.”