TORONTO, Ontario — Canada’s National Post newspaper on Friday issued a public apology for publishing an offensive, transphobic advertisement on Thursday.
The ad was purchased by the anti-gay Institute for Canadian Values (ICV), a conservative Christian organization whose founder, Charles McVety, had his television program “Word TV” pulled from Canada’s airwaves in December of 2010.
In this latest controversy, the transphobic advertisement called on the local leaders of the three national political parties to “stop teachers from confusing” children on issues of gender identity and expression.
In its apology, the National Post said it would donate the ad’s proceeds to a pro-LGBT rights organization:
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The National Post has procedures in place for vetting the content of advertising, especially advocacy advertising. The procedures are intended to ensure that such ads meet a standard of tone and respect that is consistent with furthering constructive dialogue about important public policy issues.
In this case, those procedures were not followed. An ad that should not have run in its proposed form was allowed to run.
This ad will not run in the National Post again.
[…]
The fact that we will not be publishing this ad again represents a recognition on our part that publishing it in the first place was a mistake. The National Post would like to apologize unreservedly to anyone who was offended by it. We will be taking steps to ensure that in future our procedures for vetting the content of advertising will be strictly adhered to.
The Post will also be donating the proceeds from the advertisement to an organization that promotes the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.
In 2010, McVety was found in violation of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council broadcast codes for two errors of fact expressed by in a discussion of LGBTQ persons.
The first error related to erroneous statements that the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the Alberta Human Rights Commission had a 100 percent “conviction rate,” and the other relating to the criminalization of commentary by a measure introduced in Parliament which was to amend the Canadian Criminal Code with reference to hate propaganda. After its passage, McVety stated erroneously that “it is now a crime to speak against homosexuality.”
