Two BC Liberal candidates were busted by city bylaw officers for sign violations more than any other candidate – by far.
Glynnis Hoi Sum Chan and Tripat Atwal, candidates for Burnaby-Deer Lake and Burnaby-Edmonds respectively, were each fined $9,600, with both having 32 sign violations.
By comparison, Tariq Malik, the Liberal candidate for Burnaby-Lougheed, had the next highest number of violations caught by the city, with a total of four violations and no fines.
Raj Chouhan, the BC NDP candidate in Burnaby-Edmonds, had two violations caught by the city with no fine, and Katrina Chen and Janet Routledge, the NDP candidates in Burnaby-Lougheed and Burnaby North, had one violation each, with no fine.
No other candidates were caught violating the city’s election signs bylaw.
In an email in October, Chan’s election team emailed the NOW to say they were “disappointed” by the city removing lawn signs.
“They took mostly those on private properties, saying it’s still on ‘city’ area,” the campaign team wrote. “It is just unfair that, until today, most of the NDP’s signs are still up and were never taken down by them.”
The election campaign provided the NOW with several photos of violations they believed the NDP had committed in the riding.
But in an email statement, the City of Burnaby said enforcement of the bylaw is done based on complaints, meaning the city doesn’t actively seek out election sign violations.
“Once the election campaign period began, our staff reached out to each of the candidates and provided their offices with detailed instructions on the city’s temporary sign bylaw. These instructions also included diagrams to reinforce exactly where temporary signs would be permitted,” city spokesperson Chris Bryan said in an October email.
Campaigns had a one-week “grace period” in which bylaw officers would not enforce the bylaw but instead educate them.
On Tuesday this week, the city provided full details on how many times each campaign was caught with an illegally placed sign.
“Candidates have responded well to the bylaw,” Bryan said, comparing October’s provincial election to the 2019 federal election.
Overall, Bryan said the city has seen “fewer safety issues with improperly placed signs and less clutter around town from signs being placed on properties without permission.”
Cleaning up signs after the election also took up less time on the part of staff, he added.
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