Court upholds Montreal borough bylaw banning billboards
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Quebec’s Court of Appeal has ordered three of Canada’s biggest outdoor media companies to demolish dozens of billboards in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal borough in a ruling that upholds the local government’s power to ban what it considers blights on the urban landscape.
Astral Media, Jim Pattison Industries Ltd. and Outfront Media’s CBS Canada Holdings have six months to comply with the decree and take down about 40 outdoor advertising structures, the court ruled in a split decision released Wednesday. The ruling overturns a lower court’s decision and affirms the legitimacy of a Plateau bylaw stating existing billboards need to be removed.
“Even if the regulation infringes on freedom of expression, it is justified,” Justice Simon Ruel wrote in outlining the reasoning of two of the three judges. “The regulation has an urgent and real objective, that of preventing visual pollution.”
The ruling is the latest development in a long-running war between municipalities and businesses testing the limits on outdoor advertising. In Montreal, the nearly decade-long feud pits the desire of local political leaders to improve the quality of the streetscape for residents against companies who say they have the right to sell advertising space.
This ruling could have broader ramifications for other boroughs in Montreal and jurisdictions across the country, said Sylvain Lanoix, a lawyer for Dunton Rainville who is representing the companies.