Complaint
Hosted overseas family this week and spent the entire drive apologizing for our election sign landfill
I had family visiting from abroad and planned the scenic route to show off how clean and quiet our town is.
The moment we exited the highway, that illusion died under a mountain of corrugated plastic.
Every boulevard, median, and intersection looks like an outdoor stationery warehouse exploded. Four candidates crammed onto a three-foot curb, blocking sightlines for right turns, their laminated faces glaring at each other. My cousin looked out the window and deadpan asked:
“Is this a protest, or did someone drop a shipment of billboards?”
No undecided voter in human history has ever sat at a red light, looked at a crooked plastic sign skewered into the mud, and whispered: “Dave’s sans-serif font really speaks to me. He gets my vote.”
It’s visual pollution, a traffic hazard, and guaranteed landfill the morning after election day. Can we finally ban these things on public property?
Honest question: how does the country where your family come from do election campaign? Because I've been to other countries during election, and Canadian signs are pretty tame (eg no overhead banner, no 10m tall banner, barely any signs on highways). In Quebec they put campaign signs on light poles because they don't allow lawn signs.
I understand from where you are coming that's the reason I mentioned the democracy in Canada and South asia are not same. Rest please read other comments.
Campaign signs build awareness on people who are running, without those signs, people will only be able to find out who's running by doing research themselves and look up the candidate list or something. And people won't do that.
I know but these signs screams greeds corruption and fanatims otherwise there is no reason to get this much desperate in developed countries, political posts are for serving people you don't go mental to make streats ugly to serve people.
I've been involved in political campaigning, and I can say that putting up signs is relatively minor amount of work (while having most visibility) compared to other forms of campaigning like door to door, phone calling, creating town halls/rally, setting up booths in fairs, volunteering in food banks, fundraising dinners, etc.
If you think that campaign signs are sign of desperation for the position, those other things I listed are even more desperate than that. So following your logic, political candidates should just file paperwork to run and not do anything else, orelse they'll be putting too much effort to get the position. People put more effort than that to apply to work in The Ex you know.
Because when you tell someone "welcome to our beautiful city" and the immediate backdrop is forty crooked, wind-battered cardboard heads glaring at each other in the median, you instinctively want to clarify that we don't usually live in an open-air political collage.
They came during the most beautiful time of year with the fall foliage on the escarpment. I am sure even with the political signs all around, it was still much improved from their day-to-day surroundings...
First, the scenic route is gorgeous (I hope you took them to the escarpment).
Second, I do agree that it's a bit extra with the visual confetti but how else would these politicians campaign?
Third, don't take the downvotes from this group to heart. Milton is your home and all of this election fever will be over soon.
I don't get why people are upset about a month of lawn signs in exchange for a healthy democracy. Milton had 30% turnout last election. 10 mayoral candidates and competitive races at all down ballot positions should yield more active engagement by candidates that should help the turnout. There's lots of candidates that I have no interest in supporting. But, in a democracy, you don't just want candidates thst you agree with all these time. There's lots of choice this year.
Most elections, the mayor position has barely been contested. And even if you've liked Krantz, I'd like to think that having to actively compete for the position may have forced the old guy to maybe set up some website or other form of modern communication.
If the signs really bother people, rest assured you've only got a few more weeks of it.
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u/feb914 2d ago
Honest question: how does the country where your family come from do election campaign? Because I've been to other countries during election, and Canadian signs are pretty tame (eg no overhead banner, no 10m tall banner, barely any signs on highways). In Quebec they put campaign signs on light poles because they don't allow lawn signs.