The Signs of Spring

Sign, sign
Everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery
Breakin’ my mind
– Five Man Electrical Band

Only a day after the writ dropped for the 2025 Federal election, I had reason to be in Steinbach. It was not surprising to see that scores of Ted Falk signs had popped up overnight along the sides of the road. I have to admit to a bit of jealous admiration for the size and efficiency of Ted’s team. I’m hoping, and it seems to be the case due to the difference in designs on the signs, that the CPC crew is re-using the signs each campaign.

Someday, however, Ted will decide not to run. Hundreds (thousands?) of those signs will no longer be useful and there will be a lot, an awful lot, of plastics that will be needing disposal.

Why I Choose Not to Use Signs #1

There is, as far as I know, no local recycling for Coroplast signage (or for plastic bag signs as GPC Provencher used to use). This means they get shipped somewhere else or they end up in the dump. Or in the ocean.

As far as I’m concerned, these are worse than single-use plastics because they serve no truly useful purpose that couldn’t be done in other ways. In this case, particularly, because it is to promote a vote that is almost an assured win without the signs.

With the concerns about plastics in the environment, I’ve chosen not to contribute more to the problem than I already do in our consumer world.

---

Then the photo below popped up on my Facebook feed yesterday, posted by Liberal candidate Trevor Kirczenow. His signs have been disappearing in the last few days. Finally, somebody found what had happened to a bunch of them.

Let’s unpack this:

• This is disrespectful to someone who is volunteering to serve democracy as a candidate.
• This is disrespectful to the supporters who have donated money to product these.
• This is disrespectful to the people who donated their time to put up the signs.
• This is, in so many ways, anti-democratic, essentially suppressing other people’s rights to freedom of expression.
• This is an assault on the environment.
• Tampering with campaign signs is a criminal offense punishable by up to 2 years in prison.

Why I Choose Not to Use Signs #2

I’ve driven around Provencher in a number of elections since 2015, putting up generic Green Party bag signs. I mapped where I put them and then went back to retrieve them after the election. I might have been lucky to get 60% back each time. Sometimes they are just gone. Sometimes they are ripped to shreds and lying in the ditch.

After losing so many signs and wasting so many hours, and burning so much carbon, I can’t continue to support a process that is so wasteful. Especially you know you’ll be targeted by people who have no respect for the process or differences of opinion and you know that the plastics will end up in the eco-system, you have to make some choices.

Every Choice has a Cost

On a Landmark Facebook group today, someone asked if Ted Falk was the only candidate running. The question was asked because all they had seen were Ted Falk signs. Cynically, I suppose that’s the point of destroying the signs of candidates you don’t agree with – “your” candidate becomes the de-facto candidate. (NOTE: I am 100% sure this is all independent of Ted’s campaign – some of his signs have been trashed too.)

When I ran in Lac du Bonnet in the 2023 Provincial election and I was out door knocking, I had a couple of people say “well, I never heard of you before today”. I had an ad in the Clipper and in the Dawson Dispatch that they hadn’t seen.

Apparently, some people rely on signs to tell them who is running. So, there’s a risk in not putting up those signs all over the landscape in that you lose the opportunity to start a connection with voters. They might not even know you’re there until they see the ballot.

What I’m Choosing

I’m choosing to follow my values of reducing waste and, particularly, reducing plastics.

I’ve decided to try three rental signs, as pictured above, to see if helps generate a bit of awareness. Perhaps in the future I’ll use more of these around the riding.

I’m using newspaper advertising and online news advertising to try to reach a few more people.

And I’m knocking on doors. Considering I still have to work for a living and it is a short campaign and a huge riding, I’m not going to get to them all.

So if I miss you, I apologize.

And, if you want to show some support for the Green Party, cut a circle out of green poster board and put it in your window or nail it to a tree in your yard. Or pin a small one on your jacket. The new branding makes this totally reasonable and kind of fun from a minimal consumption point of view.