Three political parties were surprised to see their electoral signs installed on boulevard Laure being removed by mistake at the request of an employee of the Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ).
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During the night from Saturday to Sunday, volunteers from the Coalition Avenir Québec, the Parti Québécois and the Conservative Party of Québec displayed their colors along the boulevard, but this work planned for days to take advantage of the better visibility will be resumed. .
“The next morning, it was clear that all the electoral signs of all the parties had been removed by the Ministry of Transport,” said PQ candidate Marilou Vanier.
“It is very deplorable and I am deeply shocked because we had managed to mobilize teams of volunteers anyway,” said PCQ candidate Roberto Stéa.
“The signs are here, at the ministry building. I don’t get them back. I consider them missing without any explanation,” he added.
The candidates do not know what rule they might have violated to justify such an operation to take down electoral signs by employees of the Ministry of Transport. The directives of the ministry on this subject are mainly aimed at not compromising road safety.
«[Je suis] very surprised because this is not the first campaign I have done. I was a shadow worker, I put up signs for Marilène Gill, among others. People are used to seeing signs on the boulevard,” said Marilou Vanier.
The Ministry of Transport has admitted the error and indicates that the removal of the signs was carried out by an employee who had misinterpreted the instructions on the electoral display. The parties did not break any rules.
“On the other hand, the parties will have to reinstall them themselves. We are aware that it is volunteer time. We are really sorry, but it was really a mistake in good faith, ”said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport, Sarah Gaudreault.
During the 1998 provincial election, a similar situation occurred to the candidate of the Action Démocratique du Québec. An employee of the Ministry of Transport had mistakenly removed Jacques Gélineau signs.
Here too, the error was admitted and a reminder was made to the employees of the guidelines to follow during an election campaign.
