Scott Radley: Proposals designed to clarify Hamilton’s election sign rules muddy the waters
The fact that a number of councillors spent a good amount of Tuesday's planning committee meeting debating whether to amend the election-sign bylaw would suggest there must be an awful lot of complaints about these things each campaign. Just a slew of angry citizens besieging a city call centre at all hours of the day and night.
Is that a fair description of the chaos?
Since 2019 until present, we've only received 40 election complaints," says the city's manager of municipal law and licensing, Monica Ciriello.
Maybe COVID has dulled our sense of outrage but this doesn't sound like much of a problem in need of a solution.
Granted, there hasn't been a municipal or provincial election in that time. But there have been two federal elections involving 61 local candidates. Do the math and that works out to a little more than half a complaint per candidate per election.
So, seriously, is this really necessary?
What this report is doing is, it's going to enact and establish a separate schedule within that bylaw for election signs," Ciriello says of the proposal presented to the committee. We're really doing it to streamline transparency and assist in ease of understanding."
That's a worthwhile aim. Clarity always is. But as councillors started asking questions on Tuesday, it became abundantly clear some of the new rules being proposed were going to do anything but simplify things.
For example, since signs on public property are illegal (subject to a penalty of between $50 and $200), there was a suggestion that bylaw officers would look for such infractions and respond to complaints. Except ...
I think pretty much all election signs are technically on city property," said Coun. John-Paul Danko.
It's true. A chunk of most peoples' lots are actually public land even though the owner will cut the grass or otherwise maintain it (do you know exactly where your property line is?). Which means thousands of signs placed close to the road or sidewalk would probably be illegal by the letter of the law.
That has never been off limits before," Coun. Lloyd Ferguson added. And I think it would be problematic to see election signs up in the middle of someone's front lawn."
Right. Signs would have to be pushed way back closer to the house where people might not see them. Which kind of ruins the point. Unless, of course, this particular bit of illegality wasn't going to be enforced. In which case, why create the rule?
Another regulation proposes that signs within 100 metres of a voting station must be taken down on election day. But what about signs on peoples' homes within that radius? Are those folks expected to remove those signs when most of the other homes in the neighbourhood can leave theirs up?
You could take away ... the ability of that homeowner or that resident to engage and express themselves," said Coun. Maureen Wilson.
The questions continued. What about hand-held signs on public property? What about car wraps if that car is driving on a public road or parked on a public lot? What about bus shelter signs within the 100-metre radius. What about any signage on city hall property? And on and on.
Suddenly what was supposed to be about clarity had turned into thick, swampy water.
Ultimately, the councillors voted to have staff take another look at a few of the issues. The report will return at a general issues committee meeting down the road.
Hopefully that helps. We all know that too often, municipal elections are festivals of apathy. Not sure adding a bunch of new regulations that could confuse or tick off voters is the way to attract greater participation.
This isn't arguing for anarchy. There might be some tweaks that would help. But if it's not dangerous, it's not been deemed illegal by higher levels of government, and it's never caused a big problem before, where's the harm in leaving well enough alone?
Based on a mere 40 complaints over the past two elections, it would seem democracy has survived thus far without a bunch more obstacles to navigate.
No reason to start adding them now.
Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com