Canadian Political Party Threatens Widow For Using Its Logo In Ad Criticizing Canadian Government

from the how-do-you-spell-streisand-in-canadian dept

Canadian Michaela Keyserlingk lost her husband Robert to mesothelioma in 2009. That's the form of cancer commonly associated with exposure to asbestos. Not surprisingly, she's not particularly happy about asbestos, and she's taken to running online banner ads against asbestos as part of her response. The ads say: "Canada is the only western country that still exports deadly asbestos." And, here's the tricky part: it apparently includes the logo of the (ruling) Conservative Party in Canada. As Rob Hyndman alerts us, the Conservative Party is not at all happy. In fact, it's threatening to sue her for trademark infringement. The Globe & Mail story linked here doesn't do anything useful like show the actual banner, so we've hunted it down, and you can see it below: That's the party's logo on the right, of course. You can see why the party might be upset, but damn, was it ever a braindead move to threaten a poor old widow for trademark infringement over something like this. As even the woman notes, she doesn't have much money. Threatening and/or suing her doesn't do a damn thing... other than give her campaign a ton of free attention.

Filed Under: asbestos, canada, conservative party, mesothelioma, michaela keyserlingk, tories, trademark