Milton’s Town Council is meeting tonight! (Monday, October 4th)
There are a few items on the agenda, but the one that has the interest of residents is whether or not Town Council will vote to ban elections signs on public property.
The motion was brought forth by Regional Councillor for Ward 4, Zeeshan Hamid. It reads as such:
WHEREAS thousands of plastic lawn signs are produced during each election cycle at great
personal expense to the candidates and their supporters, with the majority being discarded
following the election;
AND WHEREAS these ‘sign wars’ provide an unfair advantage of wealthier candidates and
incumbents who can raise money;
AND WHEREAS putting an end to the election “sign war” would help level the playing-field for
all candidates regardless of financial means;
AND WHEREAS reducing election signs will prevent more plastics from entering our
environment, trails and waterways;
AND WHEREAS sign wars further help incumbents as they are able to reuse signs from the
previous election while new candidates have to spend money for new signs;
AND WHEREAS prohibiting signs on public roadways in Burlington did not stop 6 out of 7
candidates being elected to new positions with 5 being completely new to the elected office,
demonstrating that banning signs on public properties did not hurt new candidates;
AND WHEREAS municipalities around us, such as Mississauga, Brampton and Burlington
already prohibit the use of election signs on public roadways;
AND WHEREAS enforcing rules around the use of signs on public properties costs taxpayers
money in bylaw enforcement and wastes valuable staff time better spent on more important
issues;
AND WHEREAS Milton residents consistently ask for election signs to be banned or prohibited
outright or at least restricted to private properties only, and online polls have consistently found
the support to be over 90%;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Town of Milton joins many other municipalities
across Canada and prohibit the display of all campaign lawn signs outside of private
properties; and
FURTHER THAT staff be directed to bring forward the necessary amendment to the Town’s
Election Sign By-law to prohibit the placement of election signs on public property
During his interview with FM 101 Milton following the federal election, Adam van Koeverden mentioned how he was interested in what the decision would be on this item particularly because he isn’t a fan of the signs.
There are other items on the agenda that might pique your interest. You can read the full agenda here.
The Council meeting will be broadcast live on YouTube. You can watch the stream here. It starts at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, October 4th.
