Election 519: A daily Southwestern Ontario digest

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A daily collection of news and notes from the federal election campaign:

SIGN O’ THE TIMES

Vandalized campaign signs have been a problem for many candidates in the 10-riding London region, but Perth-Wellington Liberal candidate Pirie Mitchell has been hit especially hard this campaign. Fourteen of his signs were dumped into shallow water under a bridge near Conestogo Lake, near Kitchener, boosting to more than 100 the number of signs she’s lost to thieves and vandals. On just one weekend, late in September, 40 of her large signs went missing.

POT PARTY

No, the Marijuana Party didn’t disband with Canada’s legalization of recreational pot use last year. One of the party’s candidates, Paul Coulbeck, is on the ballot in Chatham-Kent-Leamington, a riding that takes in some of Southwestern Ontario’s largest commercial pot producers. The party believes the federal government didn’t fully legalize the sale and growing of marijuana, which Coulbeck insists should be “as legal as tomatoes or strawberries.”

REALITY CHECK

With all the speculation about possible coalitions that might emerge if voters elect a minority government Monday, it’s worth noting Canada hasn’t had such a thing — minorities are usually govern and survive or fall issue-by-issue — since the Union Government headed by Robert Borden in 1917, during the First World War. Opposition to conscription ran high. Borden — he’s the PM featured on the $100 bank note — formed a government made up of Conservatives, some Liberals and independents. The unionists won a majority in late 1917, but soon weakened amid the war’s end in 1918, which the Canadian Encylopedia notes “destroyed the reason for unionism in the minds of many adherents.”

FREE TRADE

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says one of his first priorities if he becomes prime minister would be to eliminate trade barriers between the provinces, unlocking potentially billions more in inter-provincial trade. That’s a tough thing to pull off, especially when you consider it’s been a goal of successive federal governments for decades and one that has fueled more than a few spats between provinces themselves over the same period.