Having posted that little video last night about Canadian virtues, it's my sad duty to bring to your attention a bit of Canadian shame. Anyone who's been here understands the ubiquity of Tim Horton's franchises in Canada. There are, literally, five of them within 2km of my apartment - actually, six, now I think of it, there's one in the hospital too - serving coffee (not very good) and donuts (not bad), sandwiches, that sort of thing. It is not uncommonly referred to as "Timmy's" (Tim Horton was an NHL defenceman, who played for Toronto and Buffalo in the early 70s, and used his pay as a pro athlete to start the business for his retirement - sadly, he died in a car accident before it became a huge national company).
In the last decade or so, Tim's has been spreading to various parts of the US, mostly the northern states, as part of their ownership by Wendy's.
And this is where it gets unpleasant. Tim Horton's is, as I said, a franchise organization. In Rhode Island, the company has sponsored a rally being held by the anti-gay "National Organization for Marriage".
Change.org, at that link, has a petition and a sample letter. I urge any Shaker who spends money at Tim Horton's, whether in Canada or the US, to write to the company and tell them that we're not impressed, and we expect more.
Canada has had gay marriage nationally for several years now. It's shameful that a company so strongly associated with Canadian values should so badly fail at exemplifying those values.
Tim Horton's will no doubt say "it's just a franchise, they can market how they like", but that's not good enough. Corporate policy shouldn't be allowing a large corporation to be associated with organizations explicitly dedicated to removing people's civil rights - and I encourage you to let Tim's know that you won't be spending money in their stores as long as they're supporting this kind of bigotry.
Tip of the CaitieCap to my friend If for this.
Teaspoons up, let's get bailing. o.oP
Edit to add: Shaker JPlum was kind enough to post in comments the link to Tim Horton's contact page.
And success! Look at the post here!
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