Article content continued

However, until Thursday, OPG had left the ad unchanged on its website and on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJar8wQj5_k&feature=youtu.be

“This week we had a conversation with the advertising review commission and they reminded us that YouTube and the website had to be changed as well,” Bill McKinlay, a spokesman for OPG, said Friday.

“We said, ‘Oh, geez, we didn’t realize that,’ so we went ahead and changed that. We changed the word ‘Ontario,’ to ‘we.’ ”

In the ad, the narrator now says, “Last year, we stopped using coal to make electricity.”

Janet Feasby, vice-president, standards at Advertising Standards Canada, said she called OPG after Bell told her the misleading ad was still up on the OPG website and on YouTube.

She has now watched the reworked commercial.

“It should be sufficient to alleviate any misconceptions,” Feasby said. “Their response was quite prompt after we sent the complaint to them.”

Bell said he still finds the ad misleading.

“Any normal person is going to think that our power is free of greenhouse gases, and give credit to the Liberals,” he said. “Well, that’s not true. When we closed coal plants we had to build gas plants.”

He also is disappointed that OPG did not face any consequence for creating a misleading ad. And he is dismayed that they only changed the ad after his second complaint to the ad council.

“I caught them, and they hid it under the rug until I caught them a second time,” he said.

Financial Post