Some keen-eyed Yellowknife residents might have seen what looks like a new MP candidate entering the fold on the morning of April 11.
He's tall, buff and has a great head of hair. And as far as his sign indicates, he doesn't belong to any major political party.
He is Conan the Barbarian, played by movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982.
The barbarian's sign promises to crush our collective enemies, see them driven before us and provide stronger representation for women.
Although it's framed to appear as an election sign, it's more an advertisement for Fair Vote Canada, a nation-wide, citizen-led campaign for proportional representation.
Proportional representation is a voting system where the number of seats a party gets in a legislature matches the percentage of votes they receive. For example, if a party got 30 per cent of the vote, they get 30 per cent of the seats.
"Under our non-proportional voting system, a party can win a majority of seats and all the power with far less than half the popular vote," Fair Vote Canada argues on its website. "Proportional representation ensures that majority governments have an actual majority of the voters behind them."
Jeremy Flatt, a volunteer with Fair Vote Canada who described himself as a bit of a dork, said he put the sign up during the evening hours of April 10.
"I came up with the idea in 2023 when I saw a lot of the territorial election signs," Flatt said.
He explained that he'd often see a sign that notes the candidate's name and three things they stand for. The three bullet points on Conan the Barbarian's sign play on that and come from .
"Some people will see it and be like 'that's great,' and other people will maybe just wonder what I'm up to," he chuckled.
"It's just meant to be an eye-catching thing, when all the other election signs are up," said Flatt. "The real goal is to draw people's attention to proportional representation and electoral reform."
According to Elections Canada, the Canada Elections Act does not regulate the content of campaign signs. However, all election ads, including signs, must have a tagline showing who authorized them.
"A candidate's or political party's official agent must authorize candidate signs. If the advertising was placed by a third party, it must include the third party's name, telephone number and physical or internet address," Elections Canada states.
Flatt said he reached out to Fair Vote Canada for permission to use the organization's phone number and internet address on the Conan the Barbarian sign. The sign also credits where it got its picture of Conan from.
A separate piece of the act states that "no one may interfere with the transmission of election advertising, such as a campaign sign," during an election period. Conan the Barbarian is placed close to, and somewhat in front of, Liberal candidate Rebecca Alty's sign found near the Tommy Forest Ball Park, off of Franklin Avenue, but the muscular figure is not blocking the former Yellowknife mayor.
Flatt added he has nothing against Alty. The reason he put that sign there, he said, was because it was the easiest spot nearby.
"We picked the sign up from a friend's house on Con Road and that was the easiest place for the parking lot next to it where we could assemble a sign and put it up," he said. "It was certainly not intended as a challenge to Rebecca herself."
Diane Benson, a media relations official for Elections Canada, said third parties are allowed in an election. According to Elections Canada's website, Fair Vote Canada is a registered third party. It registered on March 26.
Elections Canada also does not govern where a sign is placed, Benson explained. That's up to municipal governments.
SA国际影视传媒 has reached out to Alty for comment and will update this story if she offers an opinion.
