Numerous racialized candidates targeted with vandalism during election race

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — While it is not an uncommon sight during elections, there’s some growing concern around cases of vandalism during Calgary’s municipal election race.

Several racialized candidates have been targeted, including a mayoral candidate who has lost countless signs, and a pair of council candidates in the northeast whose signs were scrawled with swastikas.

RELATED: Council candidate not fazed by ‘disturbing’ vandalism

“It’s weekly,” said Grace Yan who is running for mayor. “And I’m not saying this is racism, but I’m just asking is this only happening to me?”

Unfortunately, it is not only happening to Yan. Fellow mayoral candidate and Ward 3 Councillor Jyoti Gondek was also targeted in June when a sign thief even called her campaign and admitted to doing it.

Yan said she is constantly getting calls from volunteers and supporters who say signs have gone missing or are damaged.

Given the size of some of these signs, she is being led to believe this is coordinated and planned.

“They’re four feet by eight feet, okay, like you can’t just stick that in the trunk of your car,” she said.

Making matters worse, recently Yan’s car was broken into while it was parked outside her campaign headquarters and some election material was stolen.

When asked about the vandalism on his sign, Ward 5 candidate Aryan Sadat said it was disappointing.

“I don’t believe that’s a majority, I think it’s just odd people that need to be educated and we need to help them move forward with our Canadian values,” Sadat said. “We should work together and stand tall against any such misbehaviour or racist activity by any individuals.”

READ MORE:

• ‘I shouldn’t have to do that’: City Council hopeful describes codeswitching on the campaign trail

• ‘His first duty is to his constituents’: CTF says Chahal needs to make federal run an after-work hobby

• ‘It’s a lot of election’: Calgarians prepare for election season as federal, municipal votes loom

Yan and Sadat said police are investigating these incidents, and they are hopeful there can be some justice and possibly the acts of vandalism can come to an end.

660 NEWS reached out to the Calgary Police Service (CPS) regarding the vandalized signs, in which they responded:

“The Calgary Police Service is aware of some social media posts depicting vandalized election signs throughout the city. Over the past few weeks, we have received two reports of vandalized elections signs. We encourage citizens who witness or come across acts of vandalism to make a formal police report by contacting the non-emergency number at 403-266-1234, or call 911 for a crime in progress. Formal reports are the first step in allowing for proper investigative avenues to be explored by law enforcement and appropriate resources engaged. We take acts of vandalism and allegations of hate-motivated behaviour very seriously and are committed to thoroughly investigating each circumstance that is reported to us.”

But the exact motivation of these acts is still unclear, even though it does appear on the surface that racism could be a core issue.

“It’s always something to pay attention to and be mindful of,” said Irfan Chaudhry, the director of the Office of Human Rights, Diversity and Equity at MacEwan University. “It’s speculation at this point in terms of who might be behind this, you know whether it is someone that has hatred towards a certain person or group, or sometimes you find it’s even competing campaigns.”

Chaudhry said, to his knowledge, this has also not been as significant of an issue in Edmonton during its municipal election. But even so, this could still be a result of the political climate in Alberta.

“When you kind of see the reputation we get across the country, there is something I think fairly unique in the sense of what Alberta might bring to the table in some of the polarization that potentially can be contributed.”

Candidates like Yan said they won’t be deterred by these acts of vandalism, and they have no choice but to continue moving forward with the campaign.

“It’s just been happening so much that we’re just like ‘okay, it’s just another sign’,” she said. “We just fix it and we carry on.”

Chaudhry said increased education is always the go-to answer in trying to figure out how to combat this, and he agrees that there needs to be more commitment to that in order for progress to be made.

“Just making that normalized, that’s what we really want to push forward to,” he said. “But what I’m noticing right now, the unfortunate byproduct of raising awareness around inequity based on social identities is you do have people feeling that their identity now is being targeted, and further polarizing things. I think that is just a hiccup that we just have to work through to make sure that we’re addressing this in a more systemic way and at least acknowledging it as an issue.”