Indigenous Torontonians outraged after giant alcohol ad covers up residential school mural

Molson Coors beverage company hastily removed a giant booze advertisement Tuesday that was mistakenly erected on top of a mural in downtown Toronto honouring the victims and survivors of residential schools.

The situation came to light earlier in the day when members of Toronto’s Indigenous community gathered outside a building on College Street to express outrage that the 16-by-20 foot mural had been covered up.

“It feels like a hate crime,” said Ken Hughes, co-owner of Mississauga’s of the Credit Medicine Wheel Cannabis at 289 College St. where the mural is located on an outer wall of the rented space. Hughes and others were shocked to discover the mural depicting a residential school and unmarked graves — painted to mark Aboriginal day last year — had been completely blocked out by a banner advertising Topo Chico Hard Seltzer Margarita on Monday morning.

Hughes said he organized Tuesday’s gathering in protest. Participants waved the Mohawk Warriors Flag behind residential school survivor Joey Twins, who opened the demonstration with a prayer and a smudge ceremony.

A spokesperson for Molson Coors, which makes the alcoholic beverage, said the company acted quickly to rectify the situation and that the ad was taken down by the end of the work day.

“We take the issue of residential schools very seriously and have been partners with organizations serving the survivors of those schools for years,” said Adam Collins, Molson Coors’ chief communications and corporate affairs officer: “Once we were alerted to the issue, we began the process to take the ad down as fast as possible.”

Collins added, that, as they do when putting up an ad on a public-facing wall, “we signed a contract and paid to rent the space.” When asked, Molson Coors did not specify who they signed a contract with or how much it cost.

Reached by the Star by phone, the owner of the College Street property said the ad was “placed without my consent.”At Tuesday’s protest, Joey Twins, a Plains Cree from Alberta, said she was furious over the ad.

“I’m a survivor of the residential school on Ermineskin band — I was there as a child,” she said.“It shows me that whoever put that up there doesn’t respect me.”

Hughes said the building’s owner sent a photo at 10 a.m. Monday asking “what is this?” in reference to the advertisement, but Hughes and his staff at Medicine Wheel Cannabis didn’t have an answer.

Hughes, who started multiple Indigenous-owned cannabis shops around the city, said he sponsored the mural last year at his College Street location for residential school survivors in preparation for Aboriginal Day, which falls on June 21.

“This was a memorial so that people could see about what happened to Indigenous children being sent to residential schools, and now (someone) covered it up with an alcoholic commercial, which is another downfall of our people...”

“There’s not a lot of recognition for what took place (with residential schools), and we try to bring it to light that a lot of people suffered and died, and are still scarred today,” Hughes said. He noted that it was especially hurtful that this occurred during Indigenous history month and “they cover up this big piece of history.”

Cheryl Tomes has been active in Toronto’s Indigenous community for over 21 years, working with homeless people. Both her mother and grandmother are residential school survivors.

Tomes said the mural “is very sacred to our community.”

“We had two beautiful students who came here for about two weeks, putting that mural together.” Tomes said a walk was organized from Dundas Square to Medicine Wheel, hosting many guest speakers. “We had elders, we had drummers, we had dancers,” she said adding “it was a great way to bring the community together to honour those residential school survivors.”

When she saw what had happened to the mural, she had strong feelings. “I don’t know if it was my heart breaking first, or if it was the rage.”

Still, she didn’t want this to turn into a “big uproar” because “(Indigenous people are) the ones that always end up getting in trouble and arrested.”

Molson Coors confirmed by email that the ad was taken down by late afternoon Tuesday.

Jamin Mike is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach him via email: jmike@thestar.ca