Shortly after volunteers set up several of B.C. Conservative John Wilson’s election signs in Vic West, the plastic boards were discovered atop a bramble bush and in a nearby garbage can.
“To have a setback like this so early in the campaign is very disheartening,” said the MLA hopeful, who announced his Esquimalt-Colwood candidacy on Sept. 21. “[I] hope we won’t see any more of it.”
A member of candidate's staff claimed that approximately 100 more signs have been removed or vandalized elsewhere, and added that it could cost over $2,500 to replace them.
Other candidates have faced similar problems.
“During an election, it isn’t uncommon for us to receive complaints about damaged or vandalized election signs,” said Elections BC in statement to Black Press, adding that it doesn’t collect information about how many of these complaints it receives.
In Victoria, Black Press recently received a report that a bus stop ad promoting B.C. Green Party candidate and leader Sonia Furstenau had been vandalized.
"Vandalizing or removing election signs significantly harms a candidate's campaign by reducing visibility and misleading voters about the candidate's support,” said Furstenau in a statement to Black Press. “It disrupts campaign strategies and skews the democratic process by hindering the free exchange of ideas that voters need to make informed decisions.”
Removed and vandalized campaign signs can also "discourage” people from running, added Furstenau.
“It creates a more hostile political landscape,” she said. “We already have a hard time encouraging women and others who are under-represented in politics to run.”
Over the Malahat, B.C. NDP candidate Debra Toporowski, who is running in the Cowichan Valley riding, discovered on Sept. 23 that someone had cut her face out of one of her signs. Not long after, someone torched another one, melting it off its metal frame.
"My signs aren’t the only targets," said Toporowski. "As soon as they went up, it’s been happening up and down the Island I hear.”
The candidate said that this kind of behaviour stems from peoples' frustrations, which her husband and grandson recently experienced firsthand.
"They were putting up signs and someone drove by and fingered and swore at him," she said. "It's very sad.”
Instead of removing election signs, Wilson thinks people should save their frustrations for the ballot box.
“In a democratic process, everybody has the opportunity to put forward their ideas and run for MLA of a riding in British Columbia,” he said. “Let the signs be, and everybody should come out and vote on Oct. 19 and let the dust settle where it does.”
