Since the federal election was called last Sunday, the city has received over 100 complaints of campaign signs in violation of election bylaws.
The majority of the 109 concerns shared have had to do with how close the signs are to an intersection, said Dustin Gronc, manager of corporate and community safety division for the City of Guelph.
Section 10 of the Election Sign Bylaw dictates election signs can’t be within one metre of a curb or pavement edge, on a median or island located on a roadway, or less than 10 metres from an intersection pedestrian signal.
The parties with election signs up at the time of writing include the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Green Party.
The Green Party campaign manager for Anne-Marie Zajdlik, David de Weerdt, said that their signs have not been “perfectly in compliance” but that “every time we have learned from Bylaw that a volunteer of ours put a sign in an inappropriate place, we have immediately moved to correct it.”
He added it has “only happened on a few occasions when some less experienced volunteers placed out smaller lawn signs inappropriately. Our sign team putting up larger signs in high traffic locations knows the rules and follows them.”
Gurvir Khaira’s Conservative campaign manager Bob Coole said they had put all their signs up last Monday, with “very minimal sign infractions,” all of which were taken care of “within an hour of us getting the word from Guelph bylaw.”
“Someone just got over zealous a bit, and we handled it very quickly. I’ve done this before, I know where they have to go,” Coole said.
For the NDP signs, Janice Folk-Dawson’s campaign manager Nicole Clark said they’ve received feedback from bylaw that a few signs are not in compliance, and are actively working to address them.
Dominique O’Rourke’s Liberal campaign, however, has not been notified of any non-compliant campaign signs, said co-campaign manager Sean Mitchell.
Sean Mitchell, co-campaign manager for Liberal candidate Dominique O’Rourke, said:
"Our Dominique O'Rourke campaign volunteers are ensuring our signs are only placed where permitted,” he said. “The signs we've placed in residential areas are within the legal limit and our large signs are only being placed in industrial or commercial areas as permitted.”
Though Gronc wouldn’t speculate on whether signs found throughout town were permissible or not, he said bylaw enforcement officers will be both patrolling and following up on complaints regarding sign placement for the duration of the election.
“Regarding complaints, we would first inspect, then contact the party responsible to explain the placement issue. If no compliance occurs within the mandated timeframe – bylaw officers will remove the sign,” he said.
