The absurd Consumer Protection Act at work in Quebec
May 9, 2009 · By Charles Anthony
The busy-bodies of La Coalition québécoise sur la problématique du poids complained and took Burger King to court for having broken the law — a law that makes it illegal to target advertizing to children under 13 years of age. Burger King has chosen to plead guilty and pay a $12,000 fine but they are not alone:
Après Saputo (muffin Igor), General Mills (céréales Lucky Charms) et P2P (campagne publicitaire des muffins Igor), c’est un quatrième plaidoyer de culpabilité enregistré en moins de quatre mois concernant l’interdiction de faire de la publicité commerciale destinée aux moins de 13 ans.
McDonald’s est également poursuivie par l’OPC pour avoir fait de la publicité illégale destinée aux jeunes. La date du procès sera fixée sous peu.
Such laws and legal actions are nonsense.
It appals me to think that silly civil servants are wasting tax-payers’ dollars meddling around with stupid laws that assume consumers are stupid.
L’Office de la protection du consommateur continue d’assurer la surveillance du respect de la loi et entreprendra les procédures judiciaires nécessaires contre les entreprises qui y contreviennent.
I would rather see all of those parasitic bureaucrats sent home and paid their equivalent salaries in the form of a welfare check. That would be a more honest way of wasting taxes.
Here’s the irony of the dumb law.
I was in a Burger chain and saw a opportunity to Educate children for making a healthy choice from a Kids menu to save time for the parent as the child knows what they want to order ahead of time.
BUT, thanks to those stupid laws my idea for placing Child-height Food menus ends up breaking the law.
So wait a minute here , the child is already inside a place that sells food but you can’t show a menu at child-level when the child is under 13?
It’s OK to post the Fire-Escape map to kids,to post the emergency exit arrows, to post warning sign to kids for wet floors, and dangerous doors that a finger could get caught in.
But to post a Picture of healthy salads and grilled chicken items to lure the child into a good choice from the canadian Food Pyrimad is a bad-thing and against the law.
OK….Got it.