What can you do?
1. Learn more about The Main Historic Site: http://www.pc.gc.ca/culture/proj/main/intro_e.asp
2. Watch some movies about corporations abusing the historic site:
3. Sign an online petition against ad trucks at uberculture.org:
http://www.petitiononline.com/badtruck/
4. CAPTURE THE CORPORATE OFFENDER CONTEST! Take pics and vids of any corporate abuse on The Main historic site, note the time, place, and offender, and send them in to: ifmontreal@yahoo.com
5. Note down any companies using unethical advertising, and BOYCOTT their products and services. Send your info to erik@uberculture.org, and he will make an online corporate Hall of Shame to try and dissuade corporations from abusing the site: http://www.uberculture.org/badtrucks
6. Familiarize yourself with this campaign, and tell others about it.
7. Ask merchants to support the campaign.
8. Take direct action against the corporate spam or culture-jam it.
9. Write a letter to the editor of the paper you read about the subject. Blog about it. FWD and REPOST it online.
10. Join local activists! Contact Jason C. McLean at jc@optative.net
11. Write letters of complaint to officials in Montreal and elsewhere:
Montreal Mayor, Gerald Tremblay, through his site:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=163,261805&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
Plateau Mayor, Helen Fotopulos: hfotopulos@ville.montreal.qc.ca
Ville Marie Mayor Benoit Labonté: benoitlabonte@ville.montreal.qc.ca
Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent: info@boulevardsaintlaurent.com
Conseil du Patrimonie de Montréal: cpm@ville.montreal.qc.ca
Québec Minister of Culture and Communications, and the Female Condition Christine St-Pierre:
Through her site: http://www.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/index.php?id=1884
Michel Audy, Historic Sites & Monuments Board: hsmbc-clmhc@pc.gc.ca
Josée Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage: http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/verner/contact/index_e.cfm
If you are writing to the Governor General, address the letter to:
Her Excellency the Right
Honourable Michaëlle Jean
Governor General of Canada
Rideau Hall
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A1
(no postage necessary)
SAMPLE LETTER
To Whom it May Concern,
I am extremely concerned about corporate violations against The Main
National Historic Site of Canada.
Montréal's Boulevard Saint-Laurent, more commonly known as The Main, is a legendary street. As the first street to stretch beyond the ancient fortifications of Old Montréal, it is renowned as a gateway of immigration, a multi-cultural boulevard, and the spine of Canada’s most artistic neighborhoods. To protect this vibrant thoroughfare, in 1996 The Main was designated a national historic site. The federal government suggests the fabled corridor must have a "sense of history”, and to protect it insists that “intrusive elements must be minimal".
“The Main” historic site is currently being violated by various corporations and subsequent unethical advertising techniques. Ad trucks clog the fabled street on a regular basis, joining other intrusive elements such as Television Billboards, Reality Advertisements masquerading as “Street Festivals”, hosts of marketers handing out flyers and samples, and other forms of corporate spam. These intrusions are effectively devaluing the site’s historic designation. Historic sites are regulated by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, a branch of Heritage Canada. After complaints by artists and residents about the ad trucks and other “intrusive elements”, Executive Secretary Michel Audy wrote (on December 11th 2006): “It is the responsibility of site owners to ensure that the national historic site they own is operated to a standard that meets the principles for which the site was designated…The Main is the responsibility of the City of Montréal…”
By allowing the Main to be violated by ad trucks and other forms of corporate abuse, the Montreal municipal government is essentially failing in its responsibilities to protect the historic site. With the Plateau recently being declared “Canada’s most artistic neighborhood” in the H2W postal code area, there are complaints that the ad trucks (and other pervasive advertising) are contributing towards the “Disneyfication” of the historic site, essentially driving artists and the culture industry out. This disregard by municipal authorities is slowly disintegrating the Main’s cultural fabric, effectively ruining a federal historic site. As such, I urge you to take whatever action is necessary to protect the historic site from further abuse. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.