'Bad for the city': Regina Mayor, Experience Regina CEO break silence on tourism slogans
'Bad for the city': Regina Mayor, Experience Regina CEO break silence on tourism slogans
The Mayor of Regina calls tourism slogans that were rolled out as part of a rebrand last week “sexist” and “wrong.”
Last Thursday, Tourism Regina became Experience Regina. Slogans like “the city that rhymes with fun” and “show us your Regina” were part of the launch online.
Mayor Sandra Masters said she and some of city council did preview the Experience Regina rebrand, but said the slogans were not part of the pitch they saw on March 7.
“[The slogans] hurt and impacted people and it’s just bad for the city,” Masters said Wednesday night following a city council meeting.
“I’ve been assured that figuring out how it happened is currently underway. I do know there’s a board of directors meeting [on Thursday] night and this topic is clearly going to take a bit of priority, as well as steps moving forward.”
The Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL) oversees Experience Regina. Its board of directors will decide next steps, including whether or not jobs should be lost over the controversial launch.
“I think when offense and insult has been given and it’s corrected and accountability is taken, I’ll go back to the board of directors in terms of making a decision with the deeper understanding of how things happened and what could be done,” Masters said
“I don’t think we dig holes and throw people in them because of a mistake.”
Experience Regina CEO Tim Reid apologized on social media on Sunday. Despite several requests for interviews from CTV News early in the week, he did not comment until Thursday.
“We hurt people, we embarrassed people and we impacted people. It’s not our role and it’s not what we should have done,” Reid said.
“I think we’re going to spend a long time apologizing and I think we should. I think we should as an organization and I think I should as a leader. We were wrong.”
Reid said he has some sense of what happened that led to the slogans being included in the rebrand. However, he said they were never part of the strategy and no one would have seen them, including the REAL board of directors, city council and the marketing agency they worked with.
“There needed to be more stringent guardrails put around messaging and the language that were used. There needed to be better approvals that were in place than there were. Ultimately, the strategy that we intended to launch versus the one that we did were two very different scenarios,” Reid said.
“We’re literally going through every decision that was being made. We are committing that we’ll investigate this thoroughly. We’ll update not only our board of directors, but also city council.”
The rebranding campaign cost Experience Regina about $30,000.
Reid said he does not have an opinion on whether he should resign or not.
“I’ve been clear with our board of directors and I think I’ve been clear with council that has reached out as well. Ultimately, this is my responsibility. I’ve certainly suggested I’m open to any conversation they wish to have. I haven’t had that conversation right now with anybody, but I certainly regret where we stand,” he said.
Reid said Experience Regina will take its time with next steps and determining what to do with the campaign moving forward.
“We’ve removed all of the offensive content from anything that is Experience Regina. I honestly think we have to press pause and I think we need to bring some really great people into the discussion,” Reid said.
“I think we have to evaluate everything so we get this right.”
Correction
A previous iteration of this story stated that Mayor Sandra Masters and the rest of city council "approved" the Experience Regina rebrand on March 7, which did not include the controversial slogans.
The City of Regina later clarified that Mayor Sandra Masters and some of city council "previewed" the rebrand on March 7, which did not include the controversial slogans.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, igniting a federal prosecution that is arguably the most perilous of multiple legal threats against the former U.S. president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the appeal of an Alberta woman who was unwilling to be vaccinated in order to get a life-saving organ transplant.
As wildfires rage across Canada in what’s being called an unprecedented season, one expert says there’s more that individuals and communities can do to adapt and prevent forest fires from causing widespread devastation.
Rescuers in Washington state are praising the resourcefulness of a 10-year-old girl who survived on her own for more than 24 hours in the rugged terrain of the Cascade mountains after getting lost while out with her family.
Air pollution from wildfires remained well above healthy levels across much of southern and northern Ontario and several communities in British Columbia and Alberta on Thursday.
As bystanders screamed for help, a man with a knife stabbed four young children at a lakeside park in the French Alps on Thursday, assaulting at least one in a stroller repeatedly. The children between 22 months and 3 years old suffered life-threatening injuries, and two adults also were wounded, authorities said.
A man who killed his ex-wife’s cousin will spend life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years, a judge decided on Thursday at Saskatoon’s Court of King’s Bench.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, igniting a federal prosecution that is arguably the most perilous of multiple legal threats against the former U.S. president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the appeal of an Alberta woman who was unwilling to be vaccinated in order to get a life-saving organ transplant.
Premier Danielle Smith says the government is bringing in arson investigators from outside the province to trace the cause of some wildfires during an unprecedented season in Alberta.
Video has surfaced showing a Mississauga, Ont. transit bus plowing into stopped traffic in a crash that left one person dead and at least eight injured on Thursday morning.
As interest rates continue to rise, the cost of buying a house in Ottawa and across Canada is becoming more expensive. Many homeowners are now forced to extend their mortgage payments.
Tumbler Ridge, a community with a population of 2,400 in northeastern B.C., has been ordered to evacuate Thursday due to the danger posed by an encroaching wildfire.
With more festivals happening in Metro Vancouver this weekend than there are days to enjoy them, here’s a list to help you plan a packed two days of fun.
Quebec's precarious wildfire situation is expected to remain stable over the next 48 hours but residents displaced by the raging forest fires likely won't be able to return home until early next week, Premier Francois Legault said Thursday.
An Ontario man charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of Claudia Iacono, the daughter-in-law of the late Montreal Mafia associate Moreno Gallo, was arrested the day after the killing in Ontario on unrelated drug charges, public records show.
Former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre, who spent his life in politics, collapsed and suffered a stroke on April 11, and even as he's slowly recovering, the fighter's instinct, that he's known for, is very much alive.
The mayor of Port Alberni says she does not expect the highway to reopen for several days at least, and she is asking the province to open more forestry roads to truck in much-needed supplies to communities west of the wildfire.
New Brunswick students under the age of 16 who identify as trans and non-binary won't be able to officially change their names or pronouns in school without parental consent.
The Halifax Regional Municipality says it will announce Thursday when more residents can return to their homes in communities impacted by the Tantallon wildfires.
A $100 million class action lawsuit launched on behalf of alleged victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy on Manitoulin Island has been abandoned after the victims reached individual settlements with the church.
An 18-year-old woman riding a bike was taken to an out-of-region hospital with what police call “possible serious injuries” after a crash involving a sedan in Kitchener.
Waterloo region and Wellington County remain under a special air quality statement for the fourth straight day Thursday with pollution levels expected to worsen into the evening before potential rainfall and shifting winds could bring some reprieve.
