Blockin' Out the Scenery, Breakin' My Mind

Once again, for legal purposes, I am not accusing any specific person of anything. I am merely reporting the facts, which are, for the third time, a bit odd.

Skipping forward once more to the 2022 election. Again, I wasn't planning on running at first, and by the time the election period came around, I had just started a new job, so I really didn't have time or energy to devote to a campaign. But, I still had a few signs left, so I figured I might as well put 'em out.

Let's talk briefly about signs, because not everyone knows the minutiae as well as I do. When you buy a large, corrugated plastic sign, it usually comes with what's called an H-frame: basically two pieces of heavy-gauge steel wire about a metre long, connected with two cross-bars around 20-30cm long. Despite the name, they're made with four pieces of metal, so they don't actually look like the letter H.

A standard H-frame

As I'd purchased my signs about eight years earlier, I had a limited number, and the frames were not in great shape. A few had cross-bars that had broken off on one side, so I clipped them off with my bolt cutters, turning them into frames that actually looked like an H, with only one cross-bar: 

H-frame that looks like an H

Because of this, some of my signs sat much lower to the ground than other signs of a similar type.

Since I had so few, I placed them as strategically as possible in high-traffic areas, many of which I passed by on my daily commute. One day, as I was coming home, I noticed some bright, shiny Leanne Caron signs had popped up, one of which looked normal, and another that seemed to be quite close to the ground.

That one in the background seems a bit low

 The one in the foreground had a standard H-frame with two cross-bars:

Un, deux

While the one in the background of that picture had a single, solitary cross-bar. Almost as if someone had cut off the other one with a some bolt cutters:

Count 'em, one

For comparison, here's one of my signs that was just up the road, and which also had one of the cross-bars cut off:

The loneliest number

"So what?" you might say, "Surely some of Leanne's signs must have been old and damaged, just like yours. She's been running in these elections since 2006." That's absolutely true, and you'd have a very good point if not for one thing: For every election prior to 2022, Leanne Caron was still known as Leanne Piper. Every Leanne Caron sign was new for 2022.

And in what I'm sure is a total coincidence, that sign of Leanne's that only had one cross-bar was sitting in a spot where one of my signs had been a day earlier. My sign was gone, and one of Leanne's signs popped up; something which had happened more than once. Only this time her sign was using a non-standard, clipped off frame, just like mine were.

Now, I am not accusing Leanne Caron or anyone involved in her campaign of messing with my signs. I have no proof of who did what. Those are just the facts, and the facts are a bit fishy.

Pumpkin investigates

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign...

To start with, I am not accusing anyone of anything. I am merely reporting the facts, which are once again, a bit fucking weird.

Let's move forward to the 2018 election. Initially, I wasn't planning on running, but when no one else stepped up to challenge the incumbents in Ward 5, I had to do it. No one gets acclaimed if I have anything to say about it.

For the 2014 election campaign, I bought 100 campaign signs. Certainly not a large number, but it was what I could afford at the time. By the time the election was over, I was down to about 50, I believe, with the other 50 stolen, removed, or simply damaged beyond the point of usefulness. When election season came around in 2018, I had just gone back to university, so I had absolutely no money and bought zero new signs. Which meant using the old ones as efficiently as possible.

Between the 2014 and 2018 elections, the Guelph City Council passed a sign bylaw (which contained an error that I had to point out to them) that significantly limited where and how election signs could be placed on public property. This meant two things: 1) There was a technical limit to the number of signs a candidate could put out; and 2) It was really hard to find good spots to put them in some areas. But I am a master of  both rules-lawyering and efficiency, so I pulled out a map and found the absolute best locations to (legally) place signs in Ward 5.

Almost immediately after I stuck them in the ground, they started to disappear. Unlike the previous election, however, when my signs disappeared, new ones would appear right in their place. And I'd say a good 80% of the time, those signs belonged to Leanne Piper, as she was known then. This happened frequently enough that a voter emailed me about it. I replaced the ones that I could, but in short order, I simply ran out. When I collected them the night after the election, I was down to 30.

Again, I am not accusing anyone of anything. It could be a complete coincidence. I have no evidence whatsoever that Leanne (Piper) Caron or anyone associated with her campaign was messing with my signs during the 2018 election. The 2022 election, on the other hand...

She's Always Been a Bit Weird Towards Me

Since Leanne Caron is tossing her hat into the ring once more (and this time for *Mayor* no less), and at this point I don't intend to do the same, I've decided to get some things out there to better inform the electorate. When I was younger, I was content to let it all slide, but I've become old and grizzled, and I don't intend to play as nice as I once did.

Now, Leanne has always acted very oddly towards me. I don't know if this is just how she is, or if she has something against me personally. To be fair to her, despite the fact that I've lived in her constituency for quite some time, we've only ever seen each other during election seasons, when I was running against her. Since I rent my home, rather than owning it, I'm not part of the population of Ward 5 that she seems to actually care about. But, I digress.

In 2014, the first time I ran for city council, I was getting questions from voters about my credentials: they wanted to know what sort of education I had. So, when anyone asked, I'd tell them that I have a bachelor's degree in mathematics. Which I do. On other occasions, I'd talk about my personal history, how I grew up in Puslinch, and went to school here, that sort of thing.

We were at some event, and Leanne came up to me and said something along the lines of "You've been saying you have a math degree, right? I asked around the math department at UofG, and no one there can remember you. It's not a very big department, so if you were there..." At which point I cut her off and pointed out that my degree was from UofT, and I went to high school in Guelph.

Whether she actually asked around the math department about me, I don't know, and I'm willing to bet she doesn't remember, because for her it was Tuesday. It stuck with me, though, because it seemed really fucking weird. But, I'm just a regular guy, not a seasoned politician like Leanne, so what do I know? Maybe Guelph wants a Mayor that'll waste time digging around to try to "Gotcha!" someone when she has a question, rather than asking them directly. We'll find out soon enough.

But is that all I have? Just one little thing? No. No it is not.