If you are in Vancouver, you might be caught by surprise when you see mysterious posters popping up everywhere in the country with a QR Code on it. It might seem even more curious if you didn't know that the black and white squares are actually QR Codes, a link to a website with a petition in it.

The QR Code leads to a website which encourages local passerby to scan it and sign a special petition against developments in Flathead River Valley and Restigouche Watershed and New Brunswick. Canadians are traditionally very protective of their environment.

QR Codes are really catching on in North American, as you can see, we posted an article about QR invasion in Manhattan, and now in Canada. The environmental protection campaign is championed by one of the largest and most aggressive conservation groups in Canada called The Big Wild. This is the first time (we think) that the group using QR code technology in one of their campaigns.

It is good to see how many more people see QR Code as a powerful and effective (and possibly viral) promotional tool. The organizers of the campaign believes that QR Codes act as a 'more information' or 'read more' button that people can 'click on' and find more information online via their mobile phones.

For your information, you will need to be a smart phone user with a pre-loaded or installed QR Code reader to 'read' the code. A QR Code is complex and simple at the same time; far more powerful and can hold more information than the conventional barcode that we are using today. But the setback is that you will have to find and install the QR Code yourself – at this point in time. In the future, we foresee phone manufacturers pre-loading all new phones with a good QR Code reader.

In Canada, some of the local dailies are already using QR Codes to link printed stories to some of their online media content. They are also exploring it with ad campaigns. The Big Wild is the first Canadian environmental organization to ever try out the technology and the organizers hoped that it would spread.

They hoped that the mysteriousness of QR Code will encourage people to share it via Facebook, tweet about it or post the codes into their blogs or websites after signing the petition.