Within the next few days, federal election signs will begin to pop up on municipal property through out Newmarket.
This will be the first time federal candidates will face fines for breaching the Town of Newmarket election sign bylaws. All candidates have been briefed on sign placement. Let's hope they are diligent about complying with the bylaw.
The justifications behind the sign bylaws were thoroughly debated last term of Council. Former Councillor Maddie Di Muccio battled valiantly in opposing the implementation of the fines with arguments that the fines were unnecessary and anti-democratic. In the end, hers was the only vote against the new rules.
On the other side of the coin, former Councillor Chris Emanuel was the champion for implementing election signs fines. He was apparently upset by what he felt was 'clutter' on municipal property. You will recall that this was a theme for him. He also fought for licensing charities with donation boxes on private property because they too could look messy.
The Town of Newmarket has remained silent about how the election sign bylaw was received during the municipal election of October 2014. I am sure that pretty much everyone is aware of Mayor Van Bynen getting away with placing hundreds of signs on College Manor on the night of the debate. The Town's Bylaw Enforcement Department has a lot to answer as to why it turned a blind eye.
There have also been photos of 100's of election signs in "lock up." A closer examination of the photos suggest there might be an inequity between candidates. The public cannot judge this for certain because the Town refuses to release details about which candidates had signs removed by Bylaw Enforcement.
In refusing to release these details, many are wondering if the Town is compliant with Ontario's municipal election reporting rules. In Ontario, regardless of laws that would normally protect personal information, all details concerning election related expenses are supposed to be made public. Being fined for an election sign is an election related expense (as the Bylaw is specific to election signs) so the Town has an obligation to release this information.
If the Town of Newmarket made this information public, then all of us could judge if there was political interference from the Bylaws Enforcement Department. The Town is refusing to release this information so we are left to speculate.
At least one former candidate is refusing to pay his allotted sign fees.
The Town of Newmarket must take every measure, up to and including taking this former candidate to Court to collect. Failing to do so would be unfair to all other law-abiding candidates who respected the law and paid their fines.
If the Town of Newmarket does not sue this one individual, then the other candidates should in turn sue the Town for the unfair way the election bylaw signs have been collected.
Either everyone pays their allotted election signs fines or no one pays. It's time for the Town of Newmarket to decide.
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