So, an Angus Reid poll on Saturday had the Greens at 26% in BC, which, I would suspect, makes Blair Wilson competitive in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast – I’m not saying it’s an outlier, but… I would never make any predictions based on one poll (a Harris-Decima pole puts them at 8% today), but if the number holds up I may have to change my tune a bit. Nothing is ever impossible in contrarian British Columbia. Needless to say, I’ll get back to it in the coming days. I was going to write about the North Shore candidates. I still will, but it requires research and therefore time, which I don’t have, so in the meantime I’m going to talk about election signs on the North Shore.

Election signs are funny things, in so far as most everyone considers them, at best, an eyesore. Yet, come an election, everyone goes out driving to see who has more up, some people I know base their votes on the number of signs, colour of signs and aesthetic appeal of signs. Signs can tell us something about an election. Throughout a campaign one can tell the organization level of the candidates on their ability to get signs up and maintain them. Signs can even indicate support in a riding, if you’re careful to only acknowledge those signs on private property. Publicly displayed signs offer little more insight than a spitting contest. That said, after a week of the campaign what can we say about signs on the North Shore.

NDP – There are none (that’s not exactly true, I saw one Jack Layton bag sign hiding under a Conservative 4×4 – though location counts, across from the Wheat Pool, well done). Even long-time NDP holdouts in my neighbourhood are lacking their signs. Realistically, this isn’t a big surprise. The NDP has strength in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast, but not much at the south end (ie West Vancouver). They probably believe that it serves them better to concentrate their money around Squamish and the Northern reaches of the riding where NDP votes are concentrated and potentially under pressure. In North Vancouver, the NDP is little more than a rump focused around lower Lonsdale. Don’t get me wrong, provincially this is a solid block that makes the BC Liberals work for the riding. Federally, they’re the equivalent of a lone voice in the wilderness (yay hate mail).

Liberals – SLOW START and while we are still just a week into the campaign, one wonders why there aren’t Liberal signs everywhere. Both of these seats were won narrowly in 2006. I’ll give North Vancouver a mulligan due to Don Bell’s health problems. But there wasn’t a single sign in North Van until Bell had left hospital. That said, they seem to be making up for lost time quickly and the number of signs on private property shows that Bell still has solid grass roots support in the riding (moreover, the larger signs look GOOD – bag signs, blah). Then there’s West Vancouver –still nothing (as of this writing). This should worry local Liberals. Their strength is the West Vancouver portion of the riding and their candidate is from Squamish. They seriously need to up their candidate’s recognition in their traditionally strong region. I’ve noticed that some Liberal households on the border with North Vancouver are displaying Don Bell signs while others seem to have stuck with Blair Wilson. Again, give them some benefit of the doubt, the candidate was chosen very late in the game.

Greens – They were fast off the mark, particularly in North Vancouver, where Jim Stephenson ran last time and is the candidate once again. They actually beat the Conservatives to the punch by a couple of hours getting the prime spots on public property. Unfortunately, despite having signs on display for a week before the Liberals, their presence on private property is virtually non-existent. Stephenson is a strong candidate, though. Expect his profile to increase over the next few weeks as people become reacquainted with him. As for Blair, I was a bit rough on him last time because of his water soluble markers. Well, kudos for getting those signs up in the first few days. Moreover, the new signs which the campaign started putting on display yesterday are heads and shoulders above any Green signs I’ve seen before (note* his green “Vote Blair” signs, were refreshingly simple). As described above, it appears as though he has been able to bring some former Liberal supporters with him as he does seem to have maintained at least some private property presence. I can’t wait to see some local numbers to see just how this fight is breaking down in the riding.

Conservatives – Fast start and have maintained their signs. They look professional, as you would expect, and have a presence in every high-visibility public property area around the riding. Looking purely at public property, one might expect that Conservatives have a strangle-hold. But, while their private property support is okay, visibly, it has stagnated and not as strong as 2006. However, this may just be a function of everyone else catching up – maybe it was a good thing for the other parties to be slow off the mark, or maybe a second week sign blitz is in the offing.

It’s still only week two and signs are a dubious way to measure support at the best of times. Nonetheless, I know junkies like to know what’s going on “on the ground”. I may update this again later in the campaign to see if there’s a palpable feeling of change. But really, I think many people are just waking up to the fact that an actual election is happening. By the end of this week, across the country, there should be a better idea of where we’re headed. I suspect that, particularly in West Vancouver, an anybody but Weston vote will emerge – a handle no one holds at the moment – maybe, just maybe, should the Liberal campaign begin to fail, the default becomes Wilson (I never thought I’d end up writing so much about this guy). Though, let me stress this is hypothetical. The Liberal candidate Ian Sutherland remains the most likely ABC candidate.