Failed white supremacist "law-and-order" Toronto mayoral candidate is now breaking the law by selling Canadian coat-of-arms merch

[bigdaddyhame]

etsy’s full of this sort of thing. You’d think it was a fad or something.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/search?q=canadian%20coat%20of%20arms

[rocketpj]

This is a sort of inverted Streisand effect, where a failed, irrelevant racist gets way more attention than she deserves just by being slightly in the wrong. An unintended consequence of the attention that comes with being ‘Boinged’ might actually be an uptick in sales for this loser.

Much better to just ignore and marginalize such persons.

[Shuck]

This is like the (more overtly) racist version of those American “patriots” who angrily denounce those who “disrespect the flag” while posting pictures of themselves egregiously violating the flag code.

[cepheus42]

It says ". . . as a trademark or otherwise . . . "

Otherwise includes all other uses of it. And as someone else linked, a more official and clear notice can be found here: Important Notices - SIRC

Reproduction of Government Symbols

The official symbols of the Government of Canada, including the “Canada” wordmark, the Arms of Canada, and the flag symbol may not be reproduced, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes, without written authorization. Request for authorization from the Treasury Board Secretariat may be addressed to:

[anonotwit]

There’s nothing to prevent the Canadian government from licensing out the coat of arms to whoever is actually manufacturing them (which could also mean that Faith Goldy is selling these legally). Who the hell knows.

I think it’s also possible that the Canadian government is not exactly concerned about enforcing this. I lived for a long time near Spadina and Dundas in Toronto; I saw questionable merchandise for sale at the various tourist trap shops fairly often. I’d hope that the Canadian government has more important things to worry about.

Contrast this with a certain fast food chain with eager lawyers. This Korean noodle restaurant opened up a couple of years ago as McRamyun, an obvious play on the name of that fast food chain that was also likely to be a trademark violation.

The fast food chain’s lawyers seemed to have found out about it fairly quickly, since the Korean noodle restaurant changed the sign to Mo’Ramyun within two weeks of opening. (Couldn’t find a good shot of the sign in 15 seconds of googling, but you can see it on Google street view.)

They also had two or more glowing reviews on the Internet before they opened, but I digress.

[werdnagreb]

Goldy is beneath my caring about. She is such a marginal figure in Toronto, Ontario, and Canadian politics. She only gets coverage when she does something with the intention to shock. Just look away.

[fnordius]

Streisand Effect is not how I would think of it, but more like a googlebombing where this particular person’s name is being tied more closely to “hypocrite”. Since she’s relatively unknown, it’s adding fodder to future searches to make sure she stays in the hole she dug herself into.

Edited to add: I know that there’s another, better term for steering the narrative like this, but I cannot recall it at the moment.

[L0ki]

@bobtato

Canada follows the British model of copyrighting works created by the government

I’m sure it does, and that is monstrous (the fees and “licensing” terms for Ordnance Survey maps make Nintendo look like Richard Stallman).

Be glad we get access to the Ordnance Survey maps at all. They could all be ‘restricted’. The clue’s in the name…

@bobtato

However, in England, arms are not trademarked or copyrighted, since that would allow family members to fuck with each other heraldically.

As with everything British (especially British law), nothing quite so simple.

The College of Arms in general governs who gets to have coats of arms and keeps track of who has what coat of arms and the Court of Chivalry is the court convened to deal with disputes about coats of arms:

https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/articles/bringing-proceedings-in-the-high-court-of-chivalry-today/

But coats of arms can be trademarked. If someone else tries to register your coat of arms as a trademark or use it in a trademark, you can object.

Coat of Arms and Trade Marks – Dual Protection or Mutual Antagonism? seminar

Any proceedings about a trademark containing a coat of arms would of course be dealt with in the normal courts and not the Court of Chivalry although a dispute about whether the grant of the coat of arms was valid might have to go to the Court of Chivalry which last sat in 1954 (after a gap of a couple of hundred years) and stated pretty firmly that it didn’t want to be called on again unless it was really important.

Isn’t it wonderful…

@bobtato

and something similar might apply in Canada.

Apparently, Canada has the

Canadian Heraldic Authority

[HMSGoose]

and to Cory’s credit, he does call the Canadian laws “onerous…”

@doctorow

and the coat-of-arms comes with onerous licensing terms that prohibit commercial exploitation without a specific, paid permission.