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THE HERALD Wednesday February 1989 There must be truth in advertising Chamber Made How many times have you read a flyer or advertisement In the paper which promises huge savings on goods or services It Is not unusual to see claims such as lowest price or save up to 50 per cent Many times these claims are correct but on occasion they are not which is then considered misleading advertising The department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs investigates misleading advertising and over the last few years have levied large fines against companies that engage in this activity This article is written for the benefit of both local businesses and consumers Many times businesses will draw up an ad which they feel is ac curate However if the savings are mentioned you should make you can support your claim Also if you advertise an item at a low price you should inform the public how many items you have to sell Some recent examples of claims made by businesses and the subse quent fines are as follows I have left the name of the companies out However none were local firms A company selling new homes stated in newspaper advertisements that the homes were selling at a certain price and were of a certain size The claims proved to be untrue and the com was fined A fur retailer in Western Canada promoted the sale of fur coats and offered price reductions of up to 70 per cent off and a half price sale The representations were untrue and the company was fined a total of A Winnipeg company selling vacuum cleaners promoted in newspaper advertisements Filter Queen Power Nozzles for In vestigation proved that the product was not a Filter Queen Nozzle The company was fined a total of Where are our priorities Last week Molson Breweries said it plans to cut jobs over the next three years at and Carting plants mostly through attrition and early retire ment With luck layoffs will be kept to 500 or so The news should have come as no surprise When and Carlmg OKeefe announced that they planned to merge they said they would be closing the least efficient brewery m each province leaving the betterequipped plants to do the work The same week stepped Your Business Diane Maley Thornton Newt Service cians have been strangely silent and nowhere is the public up arms Can it be that Canadians care more about the people who make their beer than they do about the up and proudly announced that it people edit print and hopes to hire workers over distribute their daily newspapers the next year or so clearly what a cruel world hopes to win back its number one Seriously though we can learn position in the process it is easing comparing the Molson Carlmg the worries of those who might lose OKeefe layoffs with the Southern their jobs at Both are by the need About of the 1400 jobs to be the obhgaUon of corpora lost at Molson or Carlmg OKeefe plants will be in Toronto where unemployment is virtually non existent WHAT ABOUT US The news caused an uproar in Parliament union halls and in newspapers across the country Last Thursday Southam the newspaper company said it ed to eliminate another jobs already having cut 500 over the past year None of Southams competitors stepped forward to offer to hire hundreds of new reporters editors pressmen and printers Most of the layoffs will take place outside of the wealthy Toronto area Pollu tions to make money for their shareholders Doubtless the laid off brewery workers will fare bet ter the job market than the Southam employees but they are victims of the same necessity NO MERGER MANIA Four big corporate deals in the past week have prompted people who should know better to say the darndest things none of which has helped us to understand what is really going on Corporate takeovers happen for different reasons Texaco Inc had to sell Texaco Canada to pay off its multi billion dollar lawsuit incurred a much bigger raid south of the border Im STEVEN C FOSTER BALLB BARRISTER SOLICITOR 37 MAIN ST SOUTH GEORGETOWN ONT L7G 3G2 fax 41 68734962 perial Oil won Texaco Canada because no Canadian investor would pay the price Then theres the talk about drag Investment Canada into the Carling merger OKeefe already was owned per cent by a foreigner John Elliott founder of Elders IXL of Australia Why should the merger of the two beer companies now be forced to undergo foreign investment scrutiny When Mr Elliott bought Carling he didnt seem to realize that beer could not move freely among Canadian provinces Instead beer companies must have a brewery every province in which they sell beer Frustrated he sought some other way to make the company profitable Meanwhile Mickey Cohen who assumed the role of Molsons chief executive last fall was looking around for a way to expand Molsons business in a stagnant even shrinking domestic beer market That the two should join forces to seek bigger markets in the United States should come as no surprise Whether these big deals are sinister or beneficial is not something we will learn from politicians 8770109 Simon CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT Phone 4168770109 132 Main Street South Georgetown Ontario 3EG 8770109 8770109 0109 Busine You can see from these few ex amples that as a business person you should be sure of your products and any savings that the consumer will derive must be legitimate Any consumer that feels they have been misled by an advertisement should first report to the store in question and ask them of the claim If at that point you receive no satisfac tion please contact the Chamber of Commerce at and as a last resort you can call the Depart ment of Consumer and Corporate Affairs In Canada we enjoy a high dard of living because of our free market system The legislation which protects consumers from shady business practices benefits both consumers and honest business people Not rain nor sleet nor snow nor the weathers no problem FAX YOUR MESSAGE Send or receive during our regular business hours 8731911 OFFICE MA 136GuelphSt GEORGETOWN 8772300 FAX PHONE NUMBER 8731 1 ANNOUNCEMENT Mr Tom Hewer Mr Bruce Field C L U Branch Manager is pleased to announce the appointment of TOM HEWER as a new associate to the Brampton of fice Tom is a well known community leader who will service the Haflon Hills area representing the Mutual Group of companies with a com range of Financial Services including Life Disability and Group Insurance Group Benefits Investments and Financial Planning Please Feel free to contact TOM for any assistance or information you may need at 1 The Mutual Group Facing Tomorrow Together HOURS MondayFriday 900 am 530 pm Saturday 930 am 1 00 pm Packaging Tape Tan 6237147 Clew REGULAR 189 969 Magic Tape Invisible permanent yellowing mending tape which can be written or typed on CODE Box 810PP 028133 BtOPP IS C5 TAPE SIZE CofcKtrt Black Brown Beige and 6349 GSS OFFICE SUPPLIES SECRETARIAL SERVICES 8772282 348 Guelph St Unit 4 Delrex Blvd 7 Georgetown 8466947