Responsible Advertising To Children | Association of Canadian Advertisers

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Marketers approach advertising to children with the highest regard, standards and accountability. Canada is already heralded around the world as having one of the most comprehensive systems of codes and standards for responsible advertising to children. ACA is a strong supporter of the self-regulatory system in this country, but can do better.

The system has two key components:

1) Broadcast Code For Advertising to Children
2) Canadian Code of Advertising Standards

It is important to note that the province of Quebec has separate legislation regarding advertising to children under the Consumer Protection Act. It prohibits commercial advertising that targets children under the age of thirteen.

Download the guide for this Act.

Current Action

In 2016 Senator Nancy Greene Raine introduced the Child Health Protection Act (Bill S-228) a bill that intended to further restrict advertising of foods and beverages to children, but also would have resulted in restricting food and beverage advertising directed to adults. Additionally, it demonized many food products by trying to characterize them as “unhealthy.” In 2019 after almost three years of lobbying by the ACA and other industry stakeholders, the bill failed to pass. Read the case study for more details.

We share the government’s objective to fight childhood obesity in Canada. While Bill S-228 did not pass, the ACA along with the Canadian Beverage Association (CBA), Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada (FHCP) and Restaurants Canada have worked tirelessly on a Code and Guide that supports the government in achieving meaningful results without any unintended negative consequences.

The Code for the Responsible Advertising of Food and Beverage Products to Children (“Food and Beverage Advertising Code”) will be administered by Advertising Standards Canada, which will implement preclearance services under this Code and a compliance and complaint reporting mechanism. The new Code and Guide will govern all food and beverage advertising across Canada on any media. It meets or exceeds the latest Health Canada recommendations published in December 2018.