WATCH: Tim Horton’s has discovered that oil and coffee don’t mix. First, the coffee chain pulled ads it was running about energy company Enbridge, but pulled them under pressure from an online petition. That, in turn, led to backlash and calls for a boycott. Reid Feist reports.
Tim Hortons has yanked ads from Enbridge from its in-store television screens, the company announced on Twitter Thursday.
The coffee company’s decision came after a petition, signed by 28,000 people, called on Tim Hortons to pull the ads.
“Timmies: Ditch your Enbridge ad campaign or we’ll ditch you,” the petition read.
The spots had been airing at 1,500 Tim Hortons locations for three weeks. The petition took issue with Enbridge’s apparent plan to “build a massive tar sands and pipeline project from Alberta through British Columbia.”
And it seemed to work. The Tim Hortons twitter account began replying to concerned customers Thursday afternoon, saying the ads had been pulled.
Tim Hortons did not respond to repeated requests from Global News for a comment on this story.
But Tim Hortons’ nod to its customers may have angered others – the hashtag #BoycottTims soon began trending across Canada as word spread of the company’s decision.
You can watch one of a series of Enbridge ads that’s been pulled from Tim Hortons stores after online backlash here.
Enbridge, based in Calgary, has over 1 million customers across Canada, according to its website. Graham White, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email that Enbridge has “enjoyed working with Tim Horton’s and respect(s) their decision.”
<strong>WATCH: The iconic Canadian coffee chain is in hot water after pulling Enbridge ads from in-store TV. Emily Mertz has more.</strong>
Michelle Rempel, an MP for Calgary Centre and Minister of State, wrote on Twitter that Tim Hortons was “sending a message” to Canadians employed in Canada’s energy sector and seemed to agree with the decision to boycott Tim Hortons.
Jason Kenney, Danielle Smith and Wildrose leader Brian Jean also joined the discussion lending their support to Canadian energy workers.
In a statement on his website, Cold Lake, Alta. federal Liberal candidate Kyle Harrietha called the decision to pull the ads “a slap in the face to the over 11,000 employees of a Canadian owned company and to hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose livelihoods rely upon our ability to safely and efficiently move Canadian resources to market.”
“In Alberta alone, approximately 121,000 people are directly employed in the mining and oil and gas extraction sectors,” wrote Harrietha. “As far as I’m concerned, Tim Horton’s is making a political statement at odds with the facts and its history as a company that got its start in the heart of Canada’s steel industry and which, until now, had always focused on serving middle class Canadian families.”
Harrietha called on the company to reverse its decision.
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