Mr. Hayes, we moustache you some questions about your election sign

A goatee with moustache is one look local Conservative Party candidate Bryan Hayes admits he hasn’t tried yet.

“I’ve often thought about growing a goatee because I can’t grow a full beard. I used to have a moustache, so the look isn’t bad,” said Hayes, reacting to a photo of a vandalized election sign from his campaign spotted over the weekend on Trunk Road.

“We’ll try it for real some day,” he added, chuckling.

Hayes doesn’t like the vandalism but expects this was an isolated incident. 

“I think people need to realize it is against the law to vandalize election signs, but as candidates we all understand it can happen,” said Hayes.

Liberal Candidate Terry Sheehan said the volunteers on his sign committee are constantly repairing and replacing signs.

“They have been defaced, cut, hit, missing. That is something we are experiencing and fixing as we go,” said Sheehan.

The 11-week long election campaign — about twice as long as usual — is requiring much more time from volunteers, noted Sheehan.

“It’s a long campaign, therefore we anticipate we will have to continue replacing our signs for a lot longer,” he said.

Sheehan said he prefers his staff call Elections Canada if they come across vandalized signs, instead of city police.

“We don’t want to tie the police up. They are busy with serious crimes,” said Sheehan.

Richard Eberhardt, a spokesperson for NDP candidate Skip Morrison’s campaign, said there was only one incident that he knew of that required replacement of a sign.

“We received a tweet to the campaign from someone who follow’s Skip’s Twitter account to say he spotted one of our signs in the middle of the street. He was nice enough to replace it for us,” said Eberhardt.

“Other than that I haven’t seen a lot of evidence of signs missing or signs defaced,” he added.

Hayes said he isn't taking the vandalism personally, in the four years he has been MP, the storefront sign of his constituency office has never been defaced, unlike the Trunk Road incident.

“The sign team, now that we are aware of it, will obviously have to go out and replace that sign,” said Hayes.

(PHOTO: A vandalized election sign for Conservative Party candidate Bryan Hayes seen on Trunk Road on Saturday. Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday)