Toronto takes step toward ban on misleading fossil fuel ads, following TTC move

The Toronto sign in Nathan Phillips Square is shown at city hall in Toronto on Sept. 30, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Evan Buhler

Toronto city council has taken a step toward banning misleading fossil-fuel advertising on city property, building on federal anti-greenwashing rules and a similar proposal approved by the city's transit agency.

It's the latest in a series of city-level moves across Canada, including in Ottawa and Montreal, that seek to target greenwashing — a term for ads that make misleading or false environmental claims. 

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Councilors passed a motion Thursday that directed city staff to postpone back next year on a possible draft ban.

Though it stopped short of asking for a full prohibition on ads that advocate for fossil fuels, environmental groups that have been lobbying for a crackdown say it was a welcome first step.

“This is an incredibly important mechanism, essentially, to stop deceptive advertising practices that really mislead the public and have contributed to delaying and derailing our urgent need to transition off fossil fuels,” said Dr. Mili Roy, spokesperson with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

The motion suggested an ad could still be accepted if it's consistent with the city's net-zero emissions plan and complies with new federal rules. The anti-greenwashing rules added to the Competition Act in June put the UN on advertisers to back up their environmental claims.

Oil and gas groups have long faced accusations that they use advertising to mislead the public about documented climate effects and environmental risks of producing and burning fossil fuels.

The preamble to Thursday's motion said companies have used their influence to undermine emissions-reduction policies.

Pathways Alliance, one of two fossil-fuel advocacy groups called out in the motion, says it has a role to play in "important conversations about the environment and resource development." The group is a consortium of Canada's major oilsands companies.

“We remain committed to communicating, including use of advertising, on behalf of the oilsands industry and the millions of Canadians working in our industry,” president Kendall Dilling said in a statement.

The Toronto Transit Commission voted last month to bring in a new pre-screening policy for ads from Pathways and another group, Canada Action, to ensure they comply with federal rules. Like the city council motion, it asked staff to postpone back next year with a ban proposal.

Coun. Dianne Saxe, who tabled both motions, suggested the ads are a tiny slice of the advertising pie, telling staff they included just 0.6 per cent of TTC ad revenue.

Canada Action said such motions "continue to mislead the public" about how energy and natural resources "make life more affordable" in Canada.

“Efforts to restrict public conversations about our natural resources puts our economy at further risk and only makes these issues more polarizing,” the group said in a statement. "All of our advertising has always been, and always will be sourced, cited, and accurate."

Earlier this year, an Ottawa city committee also singled out fossil-fuel advocacy in directing staff to review possible changes to the city's advertising policy.

In Montreal, the transit agency's advertising subsidiary is looking into the issue, too.

“We don't like when our buses or metro are used to make the promotion of fossil fuel,” said Éric Alan Caldwell, a city councilor and Société de transport de Montréal's board chair.

“We don’t like it, we don’t want it and we want to be (the) flagship for sustainable mobility.”

Cities are looking at bringing policies into line with new federal requirements rather than banning all fossil-fuel ads outright, which could result in stiffer legal challenges.

Advertisers in Canada already faced penalties for false or misleading ads under the Competition Act, but the anti-greenwashing provisions added earlier this year go further. The law now requires advertisers to produce evidence backing up any environmental or climate-change related claims "based on internationally recognized methodology."

The federal competition bureau has promised further guidance on how it plans to enforce the new provisions.

Oilsands groups say the new language is too vague and could leave them vulnerable to legal action.

But environmental groups have argued that the international standards in question have already been developed by the United Nations and the International Energy Agency.

Research has suggested greenwashing is a pervasive issue. A 2021 sweep by European authorities of hundreds of online claims from various business sectors found nearly half were either false or deceptive.

France has banned most fossil-fuel ads, and Amsterdam barred them on its metro system. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged all countries to enact bans similar to those that prohibit tobacco ads.

Even before the recent federal changes, environmental groups used Competition Bureau complaint mechanisms to call out alleged greenwashing.

Last year, the bureau launched a formal inquiry into the Pathways Alliance's "Let's Clear the Air" campaign after a complaint from Greenpeace Canada.

The oilsands industry was promoting its plan to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, a plan that includes spending $16.5 billion to build a massive carbon capture and storage project.

Greenpeace argues the ads are misleading in part because they don't make it clear the oilsands firms are actually planning to increase their oil output overall and the net-zero goal only applies to the extraction process, which doesn't account for emissions produced when oil and gas are burned by end-users.

Pathways has denied the allegations, and the bureau has not issued a decision.  

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.