PARRY SOUND, Ontario, November 1, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Ontario government’s tourism marketing agency (OTMPC) has been caught in bed with the porn industry, partially funding a sexually provocative campaign to promote travel to the Parry Sound region to the tune of $6,500 dollars.
“As a woman, I find it demeaning that the Ontario government would stoop so low as to use those associated with the porn industry to promote tourism in our beautiful province,” said Alissa Golob, Youth Coordinator at Campaign Life Coalition, to LifeSiteNews.com.
“The Ontario government is sending the message to the public, including young girls, that beauty and prettiness is associated with pornography. Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said.
Maxim, Playboy, and Swimwear American model Leticia Cline, with two other women, traveled on tax dollars to Parry Sound this month where they participated in outdoor activities such as dirt-bike riding and hover-crafting as part of a $14,000 campaign to bring travelers to the area, The Star reported.
The campaign was jointly financed by four other private companies involved in the local tourist industry.
An article filled with sexual innuendo promoting the campaign was posted last month on a tourism website administered by the publicly funded organization Tourism Northern Ontario where Cline was prominently showcased for her sexual prowess.
“There's something about a woman who rides, whether it be an ATV, a motorcycle, a float plane or a dirtbike,” the original article stated before it was cleaned up and re-released last week.
“Well, this Fall, Parry Sound gets a double dose of intoxication, and boy, are the good times ever rolling,” the original article continues.
Referring to Cline’s pornographic work, the article states: “If you'd like to take a look at her body of work, click here—but be forewarned, it just might move you to tears—Leticia is a beauty beyond words, and you may need to take a moment to recover.”
OTMPC distanced itself from the campaign on Wednesday, with CEO Ronald Holgerson saying that Cline was chosen by one of the other women involved in the campaign because of her immense social media presence that would help spread the word about what the area had to offer to tourists.
“I don’t think that person’s other life [as a porn model] was necessarily intended to be part of the story,” he told The Star.
“I’m concerned in the future we make sure we vet every participant,” said Holgerson.
Holgerson did not explain if his organization missed noticing the reason behind Cline’s successful media presence and if it would have chosen a different person had it noticed.
Golob called the campaign’s use of a porn model “yet another example of how untrustworthy and abusive our current Liberal government is with our tax-dollars.”
Meanwhile Cline has taken to social media to defend herself and her government cheque.
“It appears to me that the Canadian newspaper, ‘The Star’ may have a bit of an issue with a model that can also ride…. Or at least a Playboy Model that rides dirtbikes. So much so that they only focused on that and fail [sic] to see what I am known for which is the “adrenalin/extreme sports model”, a title I have work [sic] hard to get and very proud to have,” she wrote on Facebook yesterday.
Yet on her own personal website, Cline admits that it was her exposed breasts that first “got me noticed” and propelled her into the pornographic world of Maxim and Playboy.
“Would I do it all over again? Not sure…I love all of those things and I am incredibly grateful for them but once you get type casted its hard to do something else,” she wrote.
Cline, defending the tourism campaign back on Facebook, said that if people look more closely into her life, they would see that her “credentials are more then just being pretty, naked and looking for a ‘free ride’ on a government dime.”
“You would think that more research would have been done if there was an article to be written, but it appears to me that they got a little [too] mesmerized by my nudity to comprehend words.”
Cline let slip to one of her Facebook supporters that her selection for the tourist campaign may not have been an oversight by the government. “Your [sic] right, bad press…good press…it's all press and that's what we wanted.”
Contact:
Contact the Government of Ontario here.
Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation
Ronald Holgerson, President & CEO
Phone: (416) 325-6721
Email: [email protected]
10 Dundas Street East
Suite 900
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M7A 2A1