Common Sense Calgary is calling Calgary city council’s proposal to limit election signs “ridiculous” and “self-serving.”
Ahead of a provincial general election this spring, Calgary City Council wants to limit election signs, citing its single-use plastics ban.
But Kristy Koehler, executive director of the citizen’s advocacy group Common Sense Calgary, says candidates at the municipal level rely on name recognition in the absence of political parties.
“Incumbents, as sitting Councillors, have huge amounts of taxpayer funding to help elevate their profile and name recognition. For many challengers, their privately-funded signage is their only chance to compete,” Koehler told True North.
“This is an entirely self-serving proposition that will favour incumbent Councillors during the next election and should be dropped.”
According to a motion before the city’s executive committee, signs are placed temporarily for the purpose of elections, and sign proliferation creates “visual clutter and unsafe distractions along roadways.”
The motion says the majority of temporary election signs are made from single-use corrugated plastics.
“Corrugated plastic signs are not accepted for recycling through City of Calgary facilities thereby generating high volume landfill waste,” the bylaws says. “Council has declared a climate emergency and has adopted a single-use item reduction Strategy.”
As one of Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s first moves in office, Calgary declared a climate emergency in November 2021. The city’s single-use plastic ban fines businesses $250 for “offences” like providing unsolicited plastic cutlery or providing shopping bags without charging a fee.
The executive committee claims that temporary sign complaints increased during the 2021 federal and municipal election periods in a year over year, month over month comparison by over 10% and up to 30%.
Koehler also said if there are concerns over signs not being cleaned up or or disposed of appropriately, council should focus on enforcing the existing rules that prevent this, “not putting new restrictions in place that are politically motivated.”
“Trying to pretend that this restriction is somehow motivated by environmental reasons is also ridiculous. Election signs make up a microscopic portion of signage in the City, and yet Council are focused on something that affects themselves so directly,” she said.
The executive committee has ordered the city’s administration to return with proposed amendments to Bylaws 27M97 — which addresses temporary signs on highways — to support a reduction in the number of temporary signs.
The committee suggested those amendments include distance between signs and roadways where signs may be prohibited, that the changes align with provincial regulations relating to election signage, and that administration consider the city’s single-use items reduction strategy.
The United Conservative Party (UCP) government will face off with the Alberta NDP in a spring general election.
Recent polling shows the UCP are a couple points ahead of the NDP for the first time since September. According to a Mainstreet Research poll published on Dec. 3, the UCP are leading by two points. A Dec. 1 Angus Reid Institute poll found the UCP ahead by four points.
