Campaign signs torn down, sliced, burned in some Ottawa ridings

As the federal election campaign begins to heat up in some of Ottawa's most hotly contested ridings, candidate signs have become the first casualties of the ground war.

Signs have been vandalized, slashed and even set on fire in the region, with parties of all stripes being targeted.

"We've had to file police reports..." said Austin Jean, campaign manager for Abdul Abdi, the Conservative candidate in Ottawa West-Nepean, in an email.

The team made the call to police after someone set half a dozen signs on fire.

"We've also had to contact the police when one of our volunteers was verbally threatened as he approached a man and woman stealing our signs," Jean said, adding that volunteers will be putting up new Abdi signs.

In the riding of Nepean on Thursday morning, commuters drove by slashed signs belonging to Liberal candidate Chandra Arya along Richmond Road and Moodie Drive in Bells Corners.

Arya's campaign manager, Jeff LeBlanc, said someone also took down Arya signs along Woodroffe Avenue.

Those have been put back up, he said.

Have you seen any sign vandalism?

If you've seen any federal election campaign signs vandalized this year, send photos to cbcnewsottawa@cbc.ca.