Vegan ad vetoed by transit commission

NAfA, a registered charity staffed by volunteers, has made it their mission to reach out and educate the Niagara community on the rights of animals. The organization is run entirely on fundraising and relies heavily on community outreach.
The latest project being put on by NAfA (Niagara Action for Animals) involves advertisements that promote becoming a vegan. The advertisement reads; "Why do you love one but eat the other? Choose compassion. Go Vegan". The slogan is placed over a picture of a puppy and a piglet. In addition to the puppy and piglet, there's another ad with a kitten and a chick, and a third with a dog and a calf.
The ads were designed by Mercy for Animals; a non-profit agency focused on the protection of animals, who granted NAfA permission to use them to put on three St. Catharines city buses. However, through the use of its veto clause, the St. Catharines Transit Commission has chosen not to display the ads.
"[The ads] are meant to challenge people and getting them to think about the similarities between the animals we call companion animals, or pets, and those we use for food. It's getting people to think critically about issues," said Kimberly Costello, a PhD student at Brock and a member of NAfA, to reporters.
The aim of the ad was to make people think, according to NAfA, and there are no offensive images or language included. Subway cars in Toronto displayed the ad last year, possibly suggesting it's just the St. Catharines Transit Commission that sees a problem with the ads.
The advertising on the St. Catharines city buses is contracted out and handled by Street Seen, an advertising company based in Brantford.
David Sherlock, the general manager of the transit commission explained to reporters that "advertisers pay [Street Seen] to put advertisements on buses throughout Ontario. In the contract we have with them, there is a veto clause; any content that could be deemed controversial, we have the right to veto."
However, only ads that Street Seen deem as being controversial are sent to the commission for approval, where Sherlock would get the ultimate decision of whether an ad will run or not. A confidential transit meeting held on Jan. 21 allowed all commissioners to vote on the issue, which resulted in the original decision to ban the ads.
Following this recent controversy, the veto clause has been altered. "The commission decided that future ads which transit staff deem potentially controversial will be reviewed at the commission level first before being declined or removed," Sherlock said while making the official announcement about the rejection of the ads.
This new process was well accepted by members of the transit commission, counceller Andrew Gill. "It relieves the burden of having everything put on one person," Gill said to reporters.
For NAfA however, this veto means that they will have to find another venue to run their ads. Their plan was to evaluate the ads after a month of them being placed on the back of two buses, and the curb side of another.
In terms of ads coming from animal advocacy agencies, the most notable being PETA, the ads from NAfA are tame.
"We've put up more provocative billboards than this, and we don't know what the problem is," said Costello.
Even Gill, as a member of the commission said to reporters, "I've seen the ads, and I think we may have over-reacted. I don't see the controversy". As Sherlock has stated however, the ads were rejected to avoid a public controversy and "outcry".
For now, NAfA will wait until their next meeting to discuss their opportunities at an appeal, as well as alternate options for the ad to be displayed in the city. Whether the ads are displayed or not, a controversy had already spawned from the issue of the veto itself.