St Catharines Liberal candidate has car vandalized with a message

It was a Sunday morning that St Catharines MP/Liberal candidate Chris Bittle is unlikely to forget.

When Bittle walked outside on September 12, he saw that a detractor had left him a personalized message. Not on one of his signs (as has happened with hundreds of Liberal signs across the country) but rather the back of his black Mazda CX-5 utility vehicle.

Spray-painted in white on the back of the family’s car was the message “F u LiBeraLs.”

On Sunday morning, Brittle posted it to Facebook with the message, “Last night, while my family and I were sleeping someone came onto my property to vandalize my car. This was clearly an attempt to intimidate me and my campaign.”

“I am disheartened to see this, but I know this isn’t who we are as a community.”

Then Bittle made it clear that despite the vandalism, he remained undeterred.

“Whomever this individual is, I have a message back: I will not be intimidated and I will continue to fight for St. Catharines.”

At this point, a day later, the post has received 1,600 reactions, 1,300 comments and 626 shares.

Roughly 99 per cent of the responses have seen voters of all political stripes saying this level of vandalism has no place in a political campaign while about one per cent suggesting that Bittle had done it himself.

According to online figures from Burlington Mazda, the value of a basic model Mazda CX-5 is $31,700.