Sign language: What are the parties’ placards saying?
On a street corner in downtown Toronto, nestled into a pile of browning leaves, a cluster of bright signs compete for attention — a lime green campaign sign for Annamie Paul bumps against the stark orange for Brian Chang, about a foot from the crimson panels of Marci Ien.
Each sign reveals a litany of small political choices. Chang’s sign features his name translated into traditional Chinese characters, as Ien’s sign reminds voters of her incumbent status in the downtown riding, with a “re-elect” banner in the corner.
They’re the kinds of decisions being made in local and national campaign headquarters. Some candidates’ photos line the sidewalks, while others opt for symbolism or snappy slogans.
Each sign is part of the usual pre-election battle that plays out across lawns and windowsills, as candidates stake their claim on households’ support and blast their names out to the masses.
In the lead-up to Monday’s vote, the Star visited eight Toronto ridings to take stock of the imagery candidates have chosen, and consulted political experts about what they can reveal.
“Campaigns, especially the local campaigns, don’t have a lot of money,” said Tamara Small, an expert in politics and campaigning who teaches at the University of Guelph. “So, if they’re making the decision to do this with finite resources, it’s meaningful to them.”
Say cheese!
Many Toronto candidates have chosen to display a headshot on their signs — including Liberal incumbents Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Arif Virani and Julie Dzerowicz and several of their opponents, like the NDP’s Paul Taylor and the Greens’ Reuben DeBoer and Adrian Currie.
It’s a decision that Small says can serve multiple purposes. If someone believes their face is recognizable in their community, a headshot could be a way to jog voters’ memories. It could also convey information about their identity or heritage.
In Toronto’s Parkdale—High Park, Green party candidate Diem Marchand-Lafortune — whose party biography lists her as being of Plains Cree and Métis descent — is pictured holding an eagle feather. In an email, Marchand-Lafortune said that particular feather had been gifted to her after graduating from an Indigenous theatre program, and noted the importance of eagle feathers within First Nations communities, “as the eagle flies highest (and) closest to the Creator.”
Randy Besco, an expert in political behaviour at the University of Toronto, said the inclusion of headshots had a deeper history in Quebec than other parts of Canada. Memorial University political marketing expert Alex Marland believes the expansion of headshot lawn signs can be attributed in part to advancements in technology that have made such signage less expensive.
“If you can put a photograph on, why not? It’s another way of showing who you are,” he said.
Following the leader
While most NDP signs included Leader Jagmeet Singh’s full name, not all parties visually connected their local candidates to the party’s top gun. While Tory candidates uniformly had signs identifying them as members of “Canada’s Conservatives,” they didn’t mention Leader Erin O’Toole. Signs observed for the Greens and People’s Party went the same route.
Some Liberal signs had “Team Trudeau” in a small font across the top edge, while others didn’t mention Justin Trudeau by name. Some candidates had a mix of signs through their riding.
“This is 100 per cent a branding decision, based on I would say probably some good level of polling,” Small said, adding that such decisions were likely made months before the writ dropped.
“Clearly the NDP in this campaign believes Jagmeet Singh is their strength,” she said.
Choosing the phrase “Team Trudeau” might be a way to run on the reputations of an overall government rather than one particular person, Small added: “Incumbent leaders have a lot of baggage.”
She thinks the Conservatives may have chosen to link to the party, rather than the leader, due to how new O’Toole was in the role — with less time to establish name recognition.
The choice to emphasize a leader or a party was “based on who they think will have greater appeal,” Besco said, with Marland noting that public opinion research from before the campaign could heavily colour such decisions.
Slogans
All Conservative signs observed by the Star featured a common slogan: the party’s “Secure the Future” motto across the top. University of Toronto professor emeritus Nelson Wiseman believes that has been a growing trend over recent decades, with parties increasingly controlling and co-ordinating their candidates’ imagery and messaging centrally.
Several experts who spoke to the Star noted the Conservative motto struck at the party’s broader messaging for the 2021 vote, with Small noting that words like “secure” often appeared in Conservative political rhetoric.
Meanwhile, several Green signs observed by the Star differed in design, from fonts to mottos, which numerous experts suggested could be connected to funding problems and other woes plaguing the national party, leaving local candidates more so at the helm of their own campaigns. “For parties that are very small parties, or very under-resourced — and the Green party is clearly one of those in this election — central co-ordination is much less likely,” Marland said.