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The battle of the 2015 federal election candidates lawn signs has commenced in the Yukon Territory's capital city of Whitehorse.
While it is probably extremely foolhardy to forecast the election results based on the proliferation of these signs, especially so early in the campaign, it does provide a glimpse into voters probable intentions.
Once someone has got a lawn site up, they probably are not going to change their voting intentions.
The candidate or party leader would probably have to screw up big time to get the person to change their vote.
Now we all know the Duffy trial is just getting juicy, but there is a horrible suspicion that Harper is going to have to do a lot worse than Senate shenanigans to lose his base supporters.
If only he would get caught carjacking or something.
Of course there is a theory of thought that holds some voters agree to a lawn sign from whichever party phones, emails or knocks on the door first.
The logic is that once a sign goes up, door canvassers will not harass the person.
They will not be bothered by the party affiliated with the sign, and other parties will not bother them because they are obviously so committed to an opposing party they actually went out of their way and got a lawn sign.
Given the length of this campaign, and the opportunities of being disturbed by canvassers are therefore much more likely, this theory could hold some water.
However, let us give the voters the benefit of the doubt and assume that the signs displayed are actually a sign of support for that particular party
So if one assumes a lawn sign represents the voting intentions of at least one of the voters within the residence, let us go out into the wilds of Whitehorse (no, really, the City tourism slogan is, "The Wilderness City") and see how the sign wars are developing.
Of course there is more to the Yukon than just Whitehorse.
In fact, the cynical motto (and definitely not the tourism slogan) is "Whitehorse, you can seen the Yukon from here."
There is also the communities. That is everywhere outside the greater Whitehorse metropolitan area.
Yes, metropolis is perhaps a bit grandiose, but one has to work with what one has got.
At least it is better term than what the Northwest Territories communities of Inuvik, Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk are sometimes called: the Tri-City area.
Getting back to the Yukon, the three main candidates have been pounding the pavement.
Melissa Atkinson for the New Democratic Party made the journey to Old Crow, the Yukon's only fly-in community.
And yes, she took some signs with her. There is also one up at Stepping Stone, a delightful spot on the Yukon River equidistant between Whitehorse and Dawson City.
The Liberal candidate, Larry Bagnell, has been doing a lot of driving, last being spotted in Dawson City after numerous community visits in the southern portion of the territory.
Despite being out of Whitehorse for a few days, his signs have continued to pop up all over Whitehorse.
Ryan Leef the Conservative incumbent managed to get a few signs up in downtown Whitehorse, which this humble scribe did not recall him doing last time.
His signs are also dominant in some of the newer Whitehorse subdivisions, where a lot of his support was based last election.
It has been noticed by others that the CBC Champion lawn signs are at the moment probably outnumbering all the political party signs combined.
Going out on a limb, those households are probably not going to vote for the incumbent, which is bad news for Leef.
Based on the vastly inaccurate sign sightings of the past few days, it would look like the race in the Yukon will not be going to the Conservatives.
And that is mainly because of the CBC Champion lawn signs.
But this brings up the the danger of vote splitting. The Conservatives won by only 132 votes last time.
In 2011 the Conservatives got 5,422 votes, the Liberals 5,290 votes, the Greens 3,037 votes and the NDP 2,308 votes.
This time around the Greens are not expected to do nearly as well due to a relative newcomer being their candidate.
The NDP are expected to vastly increase their vote, riding on the Orange wave that is Mulcair as well as the Alberta provincial victory.
However, there are a variety of scenarios where the Liberals and Dippers manage to split the CBC Champion and the bulk of the 2011 Green vote.
This could mean the Conservatives could still take the riding again.
Despite these musings, lawn signs are probably not a predictive indicator of which way a riding is going to vote.
But even the Romans liked to read the signs in an effort to predict the future.
Of course, they usually read animal entrails but you get the idea.
Here is hoping Federal Election 2015 is slightly less bloody and gory than that… although the Duffy trial is, as mentioned earlier, just starting to get juicy.
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Image: Flickr/Amanda Graham
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