The six weeks of advertising before an election means you can't see the candidate forest for the campaign sign trees, one local resident is arguing.
Matt MacIntosh took to Facebook last week to vent his frustration about what he sees as an over proliferation of campaign signs lining city streets.
His page - Ban Election Signs PG, started on Nov. 7 - is part soapbox, part social experiment.
The sheer volume of campaign signs around the city promoting candidates in the Nov. 15 local government election angered MacIntosh, who said he sees them as a waste of money that does little more than add clutter to an otherwise picturesque landscape.
And while the small-town Ontario transplant said he set up the page in a fit of displeasure, he said an outright ban may be too strong a stance.
"A limit would be better," MacIntosh said. "But it's 2014, there's a million ways to get the word out and there seems to be more signs than there have ever been in the past, meanwhile they're more irrelevant than they've ever been."
In the few days since MacIntosh set up his page, he has populated a gallery with photos of "election litter" and posted comments that have landed in his Facebook inbox, largely agreeing with his stance. The page garnered nearly 300 'likes' by Tuesday afternoon.
He said he has also been contacted by a handful of those whose names are on the ballot - and on the signs.
"The funniest thing about all this to me is seeing how many candidates have messaged me and commented on the page saying they agree with me but they haven't said anything before this," MacIntosh said. "They know it's a bad idea and then they go ahead and do the signs anyway just because they feel they have to compete with the people that have spent $20,000 on these signs."
At least one B.C. community isn't dealing with campaign signs this election season. In Whistler, candidates agreed amongst themselves not to put up any roadside signage.
"I applaud the candidates in Whistler for not posting signs this year. Every other town is plastered with them and it is so ridiculous in some cases that it turns me off the election process, I believe they have no effect whatsoever on the outcome and the lack of signs may actually get people to look into who the candidates are," wrote Kevin Rea on the Whistler Politico Facebook page.
"Gee, without roadside signs, we might just have to figure out what candidates actually stand for. Well done," wrote GD Maxwell.
Further south in Port Moody, the areas in which election signs can be erected are outlined in a municipal bylaw. After the 2011 election, the city laid out 10 predetermined spots for candidate signs and 10 specific spots for city election awareness signs that direct voters to the Port Moody website and social media accounts.
MacIntosh said he has yet to hear a strong argument in favour of the roadside advertisements.
"A lot of [the arguments] are candidates shrugging their shoulders at me and saying 'what else am I supposed to do?'" MacIntosh said. "These people are supposed to be creative problem solvers, the people that we're going to vote for."
Ryan Holloway posted on the Ban Election Signs page that signs are part of the democratic process.
"Does it work to have more signs on your roads than the other guy, not really but when I see big ones I usually remember them," he wrote.
The only downside MacIntosh said he could see - which wasn't raised by any of the candidates he spoke with - was a potential loss for local sign vendors.
"The few positive things about these signs is they create a little bit of business for the businesses in Prince George," he said. "There's the wood and everything, which I think is a complete and huge waste, but there's some people in Prince George that are making money on these signs."
But having the chance to engage with some of the candidates has been beneficial, MacIntosh said, in some cases swaying his vote.
"Two days ago none of these people knew my name, not one of them. I didn't have to make a single phone call, I didn't have to spend a single penny, I didn't have to leave my house - I did because I went around and took pictures of everything - and now all these candidates are coming to me because of social media," he said.
