Dear Fools,

We recently sent out a marketing email for our Stock Advisor Canada service that featured the flags of the four countries in which The Motley Fool offers subscription products: the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. We included the flags of each nation.

Except, we intentionally modified the Canadian flag, and many of our readers took umbrage with that. We did this for one very simple reason: We’re not legally able to represent the Canadian flag in our marketing without the consent of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The Trade- marks Act explicitly prohibits the unauthorized use of the flag for commercial purposes.

A few other readers took issue with the fact that we cited our investment returns just one week after launching the service. Let us be very clear: We consider ourselves to be long-term investors with time frames measured over years (if not decades!), rather than days, weeks, or quarters.

The first two recommended companies are being tracked already, and we’ll hold ourselves accountable for their performance versus the benchmark.

We will tweak any sales messages to reflect that long-term mindset, which is a pillar of our Foolish investing philosophy.

Thanks for reading, and Fool on —

Brian Richards
GM, Motley Fool Canada

P.S. If you have any questions about Fool.ca, Stock Advisor Canada, or The Motley Fool, you can reach our Member Services team at [email protected].