Monday 20 February 2017

Toomas Karmo: DDO&P: Advertising Standards Canada Case #141628 (Corsica Inaccuracies) Now Closed?


Revision history:
  • 20170220T0503Z/version 3.0.0: Kmo finished converting is outline into coherent sentences. He reserved the right, before sending his work off as a formal 2017-02-21 e-mail to the pertinent authorities, to make tiny, nonsubstantive, purely cosmetic, tweaks, as here-undocumented versions 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.0.3, ... . 
  • 20170221T0124Z/version 2.0.0: Kmo uploaded an improved point-form outline. He hoped over the next 3 hours to convert this now-polished outline into coherent sentences.
  • 20170221T0002Z/version 1.0.0: Kmo uploaded a mere point-form outline. He hoped over the next 2 hours to polish the outline and to convert it into coherent sentences.



[CAUTION: A bug in the blogger server-side software has in some past weeks shown a propensity to insert inappropriate doublespacing or inappropriate interparagraph whitespace at some points in some of my posted essays. If a screen seems to end in empty space, keep scrolling down. The end of the posting is not reached until the usual blogger "Posted by Toomas (Tom) Karmo at" appears. - The blogger software has also shown a propensity to generate HTML that is formatted in different ways on different client-side browsers, perhaps with some browsers not correctly reading in the entirety of the "Cascading Style Sheets" which on many Web servers control the browser placement of margins, sidebars, and the like. If you suspect "Cascading Style Sheets" problems in your particular browser, be patient: it is probable that while some content has been shoved into some odd place (for instance, down to the bottom of your browser, where it ought to appear in the right-hand margin), all the server content has been pushed down into your browser in some place or other. - Anyone inclined to help with trouble-shooting, or to offer other kinds of technical advice, is welcome to write me via Toomas.Karmo@gmail.com.]


[Open Letter to the Pertinent Authorities]


On 2016-12-20, I submitted an advisory to Advertising Standards Canada. I additionally published the advisory here at http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com. Tonight I retrieve the most relevant part of the 2016 advisory from my archive: 


1. Background: Potentially Misleading
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Advertising by Subdivision Developer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


The Ontario property developer DG Group
(http://www.dggroup.ca/; but trading
before 2015 April as Metrus Development)
in 2008 created a subsidiary, Corsica
Development Inc., for the purpose of
building a subdivision on part of the former
David Dunlap Observatory and Park lands in
Richmond Hill, Ontario. Their subdivision
was to be called "Observatory Hill". The 
envisaged subdivision is promoted, although
not explicitly under the names of Corsica
or DG Group, at http://observatoryhill.ca/
and http://myobservatoryhill.ca/.

The following misleading
language is published at
http://myobservatoryhill.ca/observa
  tory-hill-now-truly-a-destinat
    ion-in-richmond-hill-and-york-region/:

((TEXT))
110 acres of the Observatory Hill project
are now confirmed as destination green space
in Richmond Hill and will be supported by
a $54 million budget.

In its first phase, the new plan will focus
on general maintenance, but subsequent
phases will introduce renovations to the 
David Dunlap Observatory, its beautiful
administration building, plus the addition
of exciting and interactive spaces like a
skating trail, visitor centre, planetarium,
tennis courts, and family-friendly picnic
areas. /.../
((/TEXT))

I believe the published promotional material
to be in the following respects inaccurate
or misleading:

* The name "Observatory Hill" is attached
  to an envisaged 110-acre (45-hectare)
  municipal remnant park, which in fact is
  differently named, and is separate from
  (although adjacent to) the envisaged
  32-hectare subdivision.

* The wording does
  not make it clear that the "$54 million"
  designated for the remnant park is public
  (i.e., taxpayer) money, rather than money
  put up by the developer.

* The wording
  presents a "planetarium" as a decided-upon
  feature of the remnant park, whereas the
  Town of Richmond Hill has indicated in
  its park-planning documentation only that
  it will be studying the possible eventual
  feasibility of building a planetarium.




2. Possible Corrections
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Something like the following would serve
the interests of accuracy:

((TEXT))
110 acres (45 hectares) of the remnant
municipal park, conserved from the
pre-2008 188- or 189-acre
(77-hectare) David Dunlap
Observatory and Park, are now confirmed as
destination green space in Richmond Hill,
and will be supported by a $54 million
budgetary allocation from the Town of
Richmond Hill. This  conserved remnant
park is adjacent to the projected 79-acre
(32-hectare) Observatory Hill subdivision.

In its first phase, the new Town of
Richmond Hill remnant-park plan will focus
on general maintenance. But subsequent
phases will introduce renovations to the
David Dunlap Observatory,  its beautiful
administration building, plus the addition
of exciting and interactive spaces. Current
Town park planning envisages a skating
trail, a visitor centre, tennis courts,
and family-friendly picnic areas, and
also envisages a feasibility study for a
possible planetarium.
((/TEXT)) 




I have not yet been told by Advertising Standards Canada how the case has been resolved. Additionally, I have had not reply to my repeated request to the Town of Richmond Hill, seeking an acknowledgement of my casework correspondence with them. But I did this afternoon (monitoring the would-be developer's problematic Web site for the first time in several weeks) find the problematic advertising copy changed, to the following much-improved wording: 

110 acres (45 hectares) of the municipal park, conserved from the pre-2008 David Dunlap Observatory and Park, are now confirmed as destination green space in Richmond Hill, and will be supported by a $54 million budgetary allocation from the Town of Richmond Hill. This conserved park is adjacent to the projected 79-acre (32-hectare) Observatory Hill subdivision.

In its first phase, the new Town of Richmond Hill park plan will focus on general maintenance. But subsequent phases will introduce renovations to the David Dunlap Observatory, its beautiful administration building, plus the addition of exciting and interactive spaces. Current Town park planning envisages a skating trail, a visitor centre, tennis courts, and family-friendly picnic areas. The plan also proposes a feasibility study for a possible planetarium. All of this will work to heighten this site beyond anything either Richmond Hill or York Region has offered to date.

This project’s future is the area’s premier lifestyle, activity, and family destination. An incredible place to live, and an incredible place to invest; that’s all a certainty now. Get excited folks, Observatory Hill is a place you can call home in a town you already love. This once-in-a-lifetime living opportunity in Richmond Hill just became even more interesting.

This entry was posted in Blog on November 30, 2016.


****

It can be seen that much of the new wording is a copy-and-paste, using my own turns of phrase (while, to be sure, omitting my accurate-and-yet-uncomplimentary expression "remnant park"; I now think that this captures the situation well, and that I was being a bit too dramatic in bygone months, in writing "rump park"). Although it would have been professionally correct for Corsica to remark that I did some of their now-accurate writing, I am happy enough not to be mentioned. And I would have respectfully to decline payment in my exotic, newfound, role of Corsica copywriter. 

A more serious problem, however, is Corsica's inaccuracy in dates. Corsica cannot really write, without qualification, "This entry was posted in Blog on November 30, 2016." Something in the style "This entry was posted in Blog on November 30, 2016, and revised on January 29, 2017 [or February 5, 2017, or whatever], under guidance from private citizen Toomas Karmo, generating case #141628 at Advertising Standards Canada" would serve. A less satisfactory solution (because failing to tell the whole truth), but still more or less reasonable by the modest standards of the advertising community (because telling nothing but the truth, and telling the relevant core of the whole truth) would be the shorter "This entry was posted in Blog on November 30, 2016, and in response to a complaint was revised on January 29, 2017 [or February 5, 2017, or whatever]." - Or even (I am trying here to be as nice to everyone as I in honesty can), one could live with the still shorter wording "This entry was posted in Blog on November 30, 2016, and was revised on January 29, 2017 [or February 5, 2017, or whatever]." 

****

In all of this, I apply the legal principle that trivial points are not the concern of the law. I suspect the principle goes back to at least the Roman Empire, because I know it - I write here, admittedly, only as an amateur of law- from the maxim De minimis non curat lex. Unless I am advised to the contrary by some legal authority, such as the Town of Richmond Hill or the Province of Ontario, I will assume that I am here, in my own fumbling amateur way, making a correct application of "de minimis". 

Proceeding under that provisional assumption, I direct no query at this time to the developer or to the municipality.

From Advertising Standards Canada, I ask for just one further piece of correspondence (which I should then share with the public on this present blog): could Advertising Standards Canada please now indicate to me whether their Case #141628 is still deemed open, or whether, on the contrary, it is now deemed closed? 

[End of blog posting.] 










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