In 1999, a group of people running for a seat on Bowen Island’s first-ever municipal council got together at Doc Morgan’s. Since municipal elections were new here, they wanted to come up with certain etiquettes.
“We agreed we wouldn’t have signs,” says Alison Morse, who was at the meeting (and has been a successful candidate in every municipal election since then.) “We didn’t want to litter the landscape.”
Ever since then, she says, any candidate gets “a polite phone call” if they don’t follow the informal protocol.
“It’s ‘the Bowen way’ not to have campaign signs,” she says.
Although there are no specific rules banning campaign signs from the sides of municipal roads, candidates who call the municipal office are given a similar message as a way of giving them a heads up about islanders’ possible reaction to road signs. The generally acceptable option is to put up one sign at the four corners — as long as you put it towards the back of the lawn so that smaller community groups’ signs are still visible.
That property is owned by Telus which has given the island permission to put signs there.
“The Green Party is doing lawn signs big time everywhere else,” says Tim Wake, a Bowen Islander (and former Whistler councillor) who’s helping former Whistler mayor Ken Melamed with his campaign as Green Party candidate. “When we asked around here, we got a very clear message — ‘Bowen doesn’t do lawn signs.’”
At first the campaign was somewhat taken aback but Wake says the consensus now is that it’s a nice policy to adhere to.
“When I ran for municipal council in Whistler, I was appalled with the number of lawn signs,” he says. “If that’s the way Bowen Islanders feel, I’ll respect that.”
The Greens have printed up small dashboard banners with “Bowen is voting Green” on one side, and the ferry schedule on the other.
Mary Ann Smith, who worked for John Weston for five years, says that instead of knowing who can put up the most signs, she wants to know who has done the most for Bowen.
