Duceppe signs are certainly collector’s items now. Campaign signs have been (thankfully) absent for several months, but maybe the BQ campaign staff still have a few in storage. Try contacting them:
Yes, there are a few signs still up. You can still see Marc Garneau signs around Place Bonaventure.
You can alert your borough office to the continued presence of the signs. They are supposed to take down the signs and fine the parties for the failure to remove them.
Answer:
Quebec provincial law gives candidates 15 days after the election to remove the signs. If they don’t, the city can remove them and charge for it.
That’s not what was meant when they said Duceppe needs a makeover.
Spotted on the corner of Parc Ave. and Prince Arthur St.
It’s really that bad for the Bloc?
Spotted in the Gatineau area by Cathy Carling.
Even though the election is over, I’ll continue to post signs as they come in, or if I shoot them myself.
This one was spotted on Papineau Ave. and Marie-Anne St., in the heart of Gilles Duceppe’s riding.
Spotted on Place du Canada
Most of the defaced signs in this collection belonged to the Bloc Québécois. NDP signs, however, were among the least bothered.
The Bloc got decimated in Quebec. The NDP swept nearly the whole province.
Interesting coincidence.
I got an astute question from a reader today.
Hi,
as a journalist, I find the Montreal Gazette’s multimedia project tracing defaced election signs very cool. But seriously, in your slideshow there are 14 defaced signs for the Bloc, among which 8 for Duceppe only, out of 22 signs total. That’s compared to 3 for NPD, 2 for Conservatives, and 3 for the Liberals. Ratios are a little bit better for the whole blogu, but still. So also as a journalist who values objectivity, I say: boooo.
Alice Trudelle
Hello Alice.
I’m so pleased that you enjoyed our defaced sign project. Yes, the parties and candidates in the slideshow are not fairly distributed. But there are two reasons for this.
First of all, let’s look at the stats of the pictures I compiled:
43 total signs
(excluding Photoshopped ones)
23 of them were Bloc Québécois
(53% of signs)
14 of those were Gilles Duceppe (61% of Bloc signs)
You can check this on the Google Map of defaced signs.
This pretty much corresponds to the ratios you pointed out in the slideshow.
Second, I picked only the most interesting and creative graffiti for the slideshow. Anecdotally, at least, the most numerous signs visible in Montreal are Bloc signs, specifically those with Duceppe. So it makes sense that the most numerous signs are more likely to be defaced.
We’re not pushing politics here. Promise!
Roberto
Here it is, the final product of weeks of collecting defaced signs. For the commentary, I called up Kristy Robertson, a visual arts professor art the University of Western Ontario. Robertson specializes in art and activism in Canada. She offered some very useful insight for interpreting sign graffiti.
An excerpt from our conversation:
“The signs seem to serve as a place where people can have a voice in public space. This is how culture jamming emerged, when people thought the commons were taken over by corporations. Here people are reclaiming the public space for political debate.”
V for victory? For vanquished?
Spotted on Côte des Neiges Rd. and Van Horne Ave. by Carlos Hernández.
