(Photo supplied by Suketu Shah)

By David Opinko

Over 200 election signs for Lethbridge City Council candidate destroyed or missing

Oct 6, 2021 | 12:34 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Suketu Shah says he is out a lot of money and feels angry after discovering that many of his election signs have either been vandalized or are nowhere to be found.

He is one of the 32 candidates running for Lethbridge City Council in this month’s municipal election.

Shah told LNN that he first noticed a few downed signs a couple of weeks ago but did not think too much of it at the time.

Early this week, he drove around the city to check on his signs and was dismayed by what he saw.

“Yesterday and the day before yesterday, I found more than 70 signs that are, like, cut in half, like torn with a knife. You can see that very very clear that, you know, yes, our city is a windy city and it can break the sign, but not in this way as you can cut it with a knife. It’s very clear someone is trying to vandalize the signs.”

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He posted on Facebook Wednesday morning that over 80 signs had been damaged and more than 150 others had been stolen over the last two weeks.

Sunday night, Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips also took to social media to say that she noticed that signs for Shah and mayoral candidate Bridget Mearns were on the ground.

“That made me mad last night and that’s why I was like, you know what, enough of this. I need to put this up, I should have put this up two weeks ago, a week and a half ago when I saw that my signs were stolen. We did not think it would be this serious, but today, it is out of control.”

Shah says he is not sure exactly why people would be doing this in all areas of the city, whether it is a matter of his Indian ethnicity, some not liking his political stances, or any other factors that might be at play.

He was encouraged, however, to see several people offering messages of support on his social media and in person.

Priced at around $8-$10 each, Shah estimates that at least $2,000 has essentially gone down the drain.

Tampering with or stealing election signs is an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada and the Canada Elections Act, and anyone caught doing so can face charges including mischief to property or theft under $5,000 – which has a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

At the time of publication, LPS confirmed to LNN that there have been no reports of election sign tampering. Shah says, while he has not spoken to police about this issue yet, if it continues any longer, he will bring it up to both police and elections officials.

For more information on voting in the municipal election in Lethbridge, use the city’s website here.

For more coverage from Lethbridge News Now, visit our Municipal Election 2021 page here.