B.C. candidate's campaign signs vandalized with anti-trans slurs

At least seven campaign signs for a candidate in B.C.'s Chilliwack-Hope riding were vandalized over the weekend. 

Images shared by NDP candidate Teri Westerby, who is a transgender man, show that one sign was burned and several others were covered with a variety of transphobic, homophobic and racist slurs written in dark spray paint. 

Westerby said he believes the attacks were meant to make queer and racialized people feel afraid and unwelcome.

"Those are the painful, lingering types of slurs that we've heard for a long time and that's how I knew they were meant to scare all of us and we just weren't going to let that happen, not at all," he said. "We aren't scared here."

Westerby said he woke up Sunday morning to a flurry of text messages from community members alerting him that his signs had been defaced. His team removed the vandalized signs as quickly as possible to prevent others from being negatively affected by them.

However, he decided to share images of the damaged signs online and took care to post them in a way that gives the viewer a warning before seeing the slurs.

"I'm glad that people got a chance to see what queer people like me face so that they understand why we're fighting and what we need to do ... we can make history and put a trans person in the seat at Ottawa and tell not only Canada, but the whole world, that this is the way we're moving."

Westerby says he has received an outpouring of support, and those words – not the slurs on the sign – are what he will remember. 

"[People] were extremely upset seeing this happen to me," he said.

"People were sending me messages of hope … saying, 'This is not OK. We don't stand for this, we're so sorry. You don't deserve this.'"

Westerby says replacing the large signs has cost an extra $1,500.

He was elected to the Chilliwack School District's board of trustees in 2022. Some of his signs during that campaign were also vandalized, but it was on a smaller scale, he said.

Westerby said the RCMP reached out to him and said the incident could be investigated as a hate crime.

CBC News contacted RCMP's Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment for comment but did not hear back.

Hayley Tarrant, community outreach co-ordinator for the Chilliwack Pride Society, said it has been "quite devastating" to see the damaged signs.

"This is absolutely a hate crime, the law should certainly investigate this … it's not just an act of vandalism," she said.

Tarrant hopes Westerby will draw inspiration from the messages of support he has received.

"We need people like you [Teri]. We need people who care about our community and are willing to stand up and take the reins and fight for what our community believes in," she said.