By O’Canada | Link to Article
The ISIS brand has claimed another Canadian victim: an immigrant help centre in Halifax.
By O’Canada | Link to Article
The ISIS brand has claimed another Canadian victim: an immigrant help centre in Halifax.
Global News reports that Immigrant Settlement & Integration Services, which commonly goes by its acronym ISIS, is considering a name change to avoid confusion between themselves and the murderous militant group that has conquered swaths of Iraq and Syria.
“It wasn’t lost on us, the irony of the fact that our vision is building a community where all can belong and grow, and sharing that name with a terrorist group,” the agency’s director of operations, Gerry Mills, told Global.
According to the organization’s website, ISIS was created through a merger of two separate immigrant services and is the largest such group in Atlantic Canada. But the group’s prominence has not saved it from having its name appropriated by the Middle Eastern group.
Some of ISIS’s promotional material has already drawn snickers online due to its… confusing message — at least if you’re thinking of the terrorist group.
A poster said to have been found at the Halifax airport reads: “Starting a new life in Canada? Contact ISIS.”
This is not the first instance of ISIS confusion in Canada.
In September, the owner of Isis Salon and Day Spa in Regina told the Leader-Post she was getting concerned messages and phone calls about the salon’s affiliation with the terrorist group.
Lori Pawson said her salon was named after the Egyptian goddess, a name she had chosen after exhaustive research and was loath to change.
“I want to clarify to people that we have nothing to do with ISIS,” Lori Pawson said at the time.
The salon appears to have stuck with its name for the time being.
Elsewhere, a mobile wallet service has changed its name from ISIS to Softcard, and a defunct rock band was forced to clarify matters this summer by changing its name on Facebook to “ISIS the band.”
According to an Associated Press report, there are hundreds of businesses in the United States registered with the name ISIS, working in such disparate industries as pharmaceuticals, wedding planning and wig-making.