CAMBRIDGE - A Cambridge family is wondering what the next 30 days has in store after they discovered an election sign placed on their front lawn was deliberately damaged less than 48 hours after the team for Conservative candidate Connie Cody placed it there.
Brandon Cox says he found the damaged sign Wednesday around dinner time after his wife noticed it missing and thought the wind had blown it down.
When Cox found it at the edge of his property, it appeared to have been kicked, bent in half, the metal stand nowhere to be seen.
The fact that the metal stake was taken leads him to believe the perpetrator targeted the sign intentionally and it wasn't simply kids messing around.
Cox's home, on a corner lot, is on a regular route for students going to St. Benedict and Clemens Mill schools but he's convinced a kid wouldn't take the stake out and run away with it.
Angered and upset, he filed a report online with Waterloo regional police Wednesday night, but because of a delay in the system, police couldn't confirm Friday if a report had been filed. Cox showed the email confirmation from WRPS.
He says he understands it's a politically charged climate right now, but that doesn't give anyone the right to destroy other people's property.
"I don't care what party you're with, it's unacceptable," he says believing it's an act of intimidation directed at his family.
That feeling hasn't shaken his resolve to get a new sign in its place. He made the request to Cody's team yesterday but hadn't heard back. He says he may reinforce and stake the old sign in the meantime.
CambridgeToday reached out to Connie Cody for a comment on the incident, but did not immediately hear back.
The vandalism is particularly upsetting, he says, in the wake of the vandalism and threats Tesla owners and dealerships are dealing with in response to outrage over CEO Elon Musk's apparent alignment with extremist ideology and recent work for the Trump administration.
Cox doesn't own a Tesla, but he fears if someone is upset enough with a political sign on his lawn, they wouldn't hesitate to key his vehicles in the driveway or worse.
That thought prompted him to install a security camera Thursday afternoon.
He says he'd been thinking about it for a while after hearing about break-ins and other crimes in the neighbourhood, but this "kind of lit the fire to get it done," he says.
No other home in the immediate vicinity had election signs out yesterday but signs for Liberal candidate Bryan May and Cody line Saginaw Boulevard a few blocks away. None appeared damaged.
Cox adds he finds the vandalism particularly upsetting as Canadians are being asked to come together to face down tariffs and threats of annexation from the U.S. president.
"This doesn't feel very Canadian to me," he says.