The city's opposition doesn't see the humour in Montreal's larger-than-life campaign to get people to clean up after themselves.
The $950,000 campaign includes giant plastic dog poop atop a bus shelter at René Levesque Blvd. and Peel St., complete with flies.
That's the latest phase of the campaign that was launched earlier this summer with posters showing people sitting at a café next to a giant turd, and children playing in sandboxes while dwarfed by cigarette butts.
City of Montreal employees created the campaign as a way to target citizens who engage in unsavoury behaviour.
Executive Committee member Anie Samson said the people she has talked to get the message.
"If you talk to a lot of people they are amused but they feel that they had something to do with it," said Samson. "That is what we want, we want people to talk about it and I can say that yesterday, everyone in Montreal was talking about the poo of the dog."
She added that all Montrealers want a clean city, but they don't necessarily think hiring extra workers is the best approach.
"If we weren't doing it, everyone would say it's the responsibility of the city. 'We're not doing it, and bring more people and do the job.' This is not the message that we want to pass," said Samson.
"We don't want to hire more people to clean the city. We want people to help us to clean."
Montreal has been running cleanliness campaigns for many years, but this year decided to shock the public into action.
Meanwhile opposition councillors said the ads definitely shock -- and would likely shock tourists too.
"This is too much money," said opposition councillor Francois Limoges. "For $950,000, you can hire nine inspectors to go on the streets and give fines to people who put trash anywhere and that don't take care of the cleanliness of their dogs."
