New ban on election signs stirs controversy

New Blue party candidate and current Cambridge MPP Belinda Karahalios violated a new bylaw banning election signs along regional roads, a Cambridge resident says.

But Jim Karahalios, the MPP’s husband and party co-founder, denounced the bylaw as “anti-democratic, illegal and unconstitutional.”

Resident Matthew Stubbings contacted the Cambridge Times after seeing Karahalios’s election placards on Franklin Boulevard, contrary to the regional bylaw that came into effect in January banning election signs from regional roads. Stubbings photographed the New Blue election signs, stretching from Can-Amera Boulevard to Avenue Road, calling it “the first test of the new regional bylaw.”

He added he contacted regional bylaw about the signs.

As of Tuesday, the signs had been removed.

“Candidates will be receiving information on the bylaw and where they can place election signs. We are taking a progressive enforcement approach and will be educating candidates on where they can and cannot place signs,” regional staff said in an email.

Bylaw officers investigate sign placements if they receive a complaint, the email said. The sign will be removed if the complaint is valid and the sign is in an area it shouldn’t be.

The bylaw prohibiting election signs along regional roads is “antidemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional,” said Jim Karahalios in an email. The ban flies in the face of Canadian case law giving people the right to participate in the political process and goes beyond the scope of the authority of the region, he said.

“Other municipalities in Canada have rejected such bans on election signs because they know it is illegal,” Karahalios said. “But in Cambridge, local councillors don’t care about the rules. We have Cambridge city councillors who break their own rules to ram a new development in Blair village and a drug injection site in Galt, against the will of Cambridge residents. Now, we have regional councillors who set illegal bylaws to try to silence constituents from fully participating in the democratic process.”

Karahalios added he doesn’t want to see his wife’s signs disposed of as they are paid for by party donors “who work hard for the money.”

Municipal bylaw officers can remove election signs if they are in a location they shouldn’t be, said John Mattocks, Cambridge’s manager of municipal bylaw compliance. Signs aren’t allowed on or within any road allowance abutting any city building; on any utility pole, official sign or official sign structure; on any tree or fence on city property; in any city cemetery, war memorial, cenotaph, mausoleum, tomb, headstone, pergola or park; at any location where the election sign constitutes a safety hazard to the general public; and if it exceeds a height of 1.5 metres if placed on an outer boulevard of a road.

The city investigates sign placements on a complaint basis, Mattocks said. He added if a sign is removed, it can be returned. A warning or charge may be issued following a “progressive enforcement approach,” he said.