Election sign vandalism infuriating, pointless in a democracy

By Lethbridge Herald on April 8, 2025.

POINT OF VIEW – Editor Scott Sakatch

It’s been a busy week and I’ve had a lot on my mind, so this is going to be one of those columns that touches on several subjects (which is a not-so-subtle way of saying I personally suffer from adult ADHD, so why not inflict that on all of you, as well?).

SIGN OF THE TIMES: It’s a sad but entirely predictable fact that the election sign vandalism and theft in Coaldale over the weekend wasn’t a surprise. This has become an infuriating theme over the past several elections, at all levels and across parties. I always wonder at what point someone decides that it’s worth the time, effort and risk – yes, you absolutely can be fined for doing it – to draw stupid garbage on a campaign sign, or destroy it, or steal it. Do you honestly think you’re changing anyone’s mind by doing so? Do you think someone will not vote for a candidate because you spray-painted a brainless or offensive message on their sign? In short, vandal, do you seriously not have anything better to do with your time? Just be thankful you live in a country where you’re allowed to vote, instead of one where you’ll get a knock on the skull from some jack-booted thug on the orders of a brutal dictator. Go visit a country like that before you go calling Canada a dictatorship.

RUNDOWN ON ROASTS AND TOASTS: As editor, I get a lot of messages from people complaining that their submission didn’t make it into the Roasts and Toasts section on the Herald’s Readers Forum page. I don’t have time to respond to them all – seriously, if I did, that would take up half my workday – so I’m going to use some space here to give you an idea of why that might have happened. First and foremost, a lot of the time we just have far too many submissions that are saying the exact same thing but in different words. If a dozen submission all have the same essential post, the first few will go in but the rest won’t. Also, I feel the need to point out that we get a surprising number of submissions that I know for a fact weren’t read by the person who wrote them before they hit the “send” button. Quite simply, they just don’t make sense. Missing punctuation or even entire words, incomplete sentences, the apparent belief that I can somehow read your mind…I just don’t have the time to go through every single one and figure out what you’re trying to say. Many other submissions are just plain factually wrong, or they spread misinformation, and/or they take nasty, personal pot shots at people. Sorry, it’s not going in. Same in reverse for Toasts that are barely disguised advertisements for a company: first, there’s no way of verifying them and second, ad revenue is how the Herald makes its money. That brings up another point that needs to be driven home: despite what some people seem to believe, we’re a private business, not a public service. No matter how much you “demand” that we print your submission, we’re under no obligation to do so.

SPEAKING OF ROASTS…my wife and I have our tickets for the celebrity roast of Mark Campbell this Friday at the German Canadian Club. To be honest, I was sold the minute I first heard about it from local stand-up comic Brian Dawydiuk, who’s also one of the hosts. Like thousands of southern Albertans, I grew up listening to Mark on the radio and watching him on TV. If ever there was a Lethbridgeianite (seriously, we need to come up with an official term for that, which I’ll address in another column) who was the perfect target for gentle jabs, it’s the Boogeyman. He’s been synonymous with Lethbridge for five decades now, and, well, he desperately needs to be taken down a peg or two. I’m joking, of course, just like all the roasters will be on Friday. Like the old saying goes, we kid because we love.

IT’S NOT A CELEBRITY ROAST BUT IT’S A NIGHT OUT: I hope southern Albertans will take advantage of at least one of the candidate forums scheduled before the April 28 election. Not that all elections aren’t important, but I feel like there’s an urgency this time around that we haven’t seen before. I don’t know about you but my retirement savings have taken a savage beating in the week since Trump decided to throw a wrench into the world economy. I’d really like to know that the party that gets my vote has a plan to deal with that, and with the potential for western unrest that seems to be looming if a certain party wins a majority. There’s a lot on the line this time around that we haven’t seen before, and I for one have a lot of questions. I’ll be asking some of those questions as a media panel member at the Lethbridge Public Library’s forum on April 16, but my colleague and pal Al Beeber will get the opportunity first at the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce forum tomorrow night at the Yates. Hope to see you there!

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