Home » News » ‘Trying to erase my candidacy’: Liberal laments election sign theft

‘Trying to erase my candidacy’: Liberal laments election sign theft

‘Trying to erase my candidacy’: Liberal laments election sign theft
May Be Interested In:Preity Zinta shuts down troll for distasteful remark about not marrying her IPL team Punjab Kings player Glenn Maxwell: ‘Will you ask this to…’


A Liberal candidate says theft in his rural Manitoba riding is a sign of democracy suppression.

Last week, more than 50 election signs bearing Trevor Kirczenow’s name went missing in multiple communities in the Provencher riding in southeast Manitoba. The placards vanished from streets, boulevards and private lawns in Niverville, Lorette, Landmark and Steinbach.

“This is really like someone is trying to erase my candidacy,” Kirczenow said Monday, two weeks before the April 28 federal election. “It seems extremely organized.”

SUPPLIED

Signs for Liberal candidate Trevor Kirczenow found strewn in a ditch along the Trans-Canada Highway.

A few days later, his team found about a dozen signs strewn in a ditch along the Trans-Canada Highway. By then, Kirczenow had spent more than $300 to replace the signs.

Kirczenow, who is transgender, said it’s not the first time his campaign material has been tampered with. When he ran in Provencher during the 2021 federal election, he had signs stolen and defaced with transphobic hate speech.

He says this year’s campaign feels more consequential than previous elections.

“Signs are quite important, it’s a really basic way for people to know who the candidates are in the election,” Kirczenow said. “What’s happening to democracy in the U.S. right now, and the erosion of democracy that we’re seeing, I don’t want that to happen in Canada.”

Theft or defacement of campaign signs is a criminal offence punishable by fine or jail time. Elections Canada doesn’t investigate reported thefts, but they can be forwarded to the Commissioner of Federal Elections.

RCMP spokesperson Michelle Lissel said Mounties have not received any reports of stolen signs, but encouraged residents to report stolen or damaged items to the local detachment.

Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson Ally Cox said theft of election signs can be reported online, in-person, or by calling the WPS non-emergency line.

Royden Brousseau, the Conservative Party of Canada candidate in Winnipeg South Centre, said he’s seen sign theft in his riding.

Over the weekend he was sent a video of a resident stealing one of his signs from a front lawn and stomping on it.

“I’ve got a thick skin, you have to in this election,” he said.

Marie-France Kenny, Manitoba spokesperson for Elections Canada, said the issue of theft comes up every election.

“It’s all part of elections, sometimes its partisan, sometimes it isn’t,” she said.

In its 2021 annual report, the Commissioner of Canada Elections said it received 153 complaints related to preventing or impairing the transmission of election advertising.

Most of the complaints related to online video footage showing a candidate removing campaign material from a person’s porch in Alberta, the report said.

George Chahal, then-Liberal candidate for the electoral district of Calgary Skyview, removed another candidate’s campaign flyer from a porch and replaced it with his own campaign flyer.

He was fined $500.