Election sign laws in question

As the campaign continues — more and more election signs are popping up on boulevards and front lawns across the province. It’s a traditional way for parties to advertise — and for voters to show their support. But one of Hamilton’s largest property management companies has decided it’s tenants cannot put up election signs — even if they’re inside and only showing from the window.

We came to speak with Christine Boyd this morning and she had NDP signs in each of her windows because, Thursday, one of the property managers here took away her lawn sign saying they’re not allowed. Now she’s not even allowed to put them in her window. She feels like she’s being treated as a second class citizen just because she’s a renter.

Christine Boyd has been living in this townhouse with her mother for seven years, and during all the provincial and federal elections in that time, she has displayed orange NDP signs. Then, on Wednesday, she saw a property manager walking away with her previously planted sign: “He said I rented the unit, and not the property, and that the sign cannot go on the lawn.”

Boyd has always put her sign near her flower bed, but the property manager could make a case that signs interfere with lawn maintenance, or that the lawns in front of each unit are common areas. So, Boyd put NDP signs in all her windows: “And if I had more windows, I’d put them in the other windows too.”

But after we spoke to Boyd, the property manager came back and ordered her to also remove the signs from her windows. She says it’s a violation of her human rights: “It’s just a way of life, that I exercise my right to vote, and I exercise my freedom of speech by putting my sign on my lawn.”

Effort Trust manages these townhomes — the company has 115 rental properties in central Hamilton alone, and many more in surrounding communities. The spokesperson in charge of the apparently recent decision to ban election signs was not available to speak to us. But a Hamilton lawyer who settles tenant disputes says it will be hard for effort Trust to enforce the new rule.

Sharon Crowe is with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic: “The landlord would have to tie their request to some other prohibited ground, that it’s causing damage, or interfering with some other right of the landlord, which seems like a bit of a stretch.”

For David Michor from Andrea Horwath’s campaign staff, this is not a good sign: “I’ve been managing campaigns in Hamilton for 15 years. We have never had a problem with rental properties. I’m really confused as to why they’re taking this position around the signs.”

Horwath’s campaign manager will be following up with Effort Trust when that Effort Trust manager, David Horwood, returns on Tuesday. The lawyer we spoke to suggested Boyd might have to write a demand letter to the landlord tenant board and maybe even take it to a tribunal. But no bylaw or election law or tenant act deals specifically with election signs. And Boyd doesn’t really want to move — her 89-year old mother has recently gone blind so any move would be a big upheaval.