Alberta justice minister denies vandalizing his own campaign signs to read ‘Jonathan Penis’

Mikaela MacKenzie/Calgary HeraldConservative justice minister Jonathan Denis plants a sign in his Acadia constituency in Calgary on Tuesday, April 7, 2015.

Polls show the Alberta election May 5 will be one of the most closely fought contests in recent memory, so it’s understandable that candidates will claw at any small advantage in order to win. But Progressive Conservative MLA and current justice minister Jonathan Denis flatly denies defacing his own campaign signs to catch voters’ attention.

At issue are several signs seen around Calgary-Acadia, where Denis is running for re-election, which have been expertly altered to read “Jonathan Penis.”

Mike Morrison, @mikesbloggity/TwitterA defaced Jonathan Denis sign.

Following a National Post report about the signs earlier this week, a tipster told the Post a similar thing happened when Denis was at the University of Saskatchewan in the late ’90s. But Denis, then running for a position in the student government, was widely believed to have committed the vandalism himself in order to gain greater name recognition over his rivals.

“My recollection is he admitted to it,” said the source, a law school classmate of Denis’s who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of possible retribution.

Although he couldn’t remember a one-on-one conversation with Denis in which he admitted to the stunt, the anonymous tipster said it was “common knowledge” that he’d altered his own signs, which he remembered reading “Put Denis in your box” before they were changed to a more scandalous suggestion. 

Denis, however, denies any such shenanigans took place then or now.

“Absolutely not,” he told the National Post Friday.

The Sheaf/University of Saskatchewan ArchivesJonathan Denis asks for votes in his bid to be elected to the university senate in 1998.

The Tory MLA says he sees the humour in the sign vandalism — there have been five Penis signs already — but that it’s something he’s lived with for decades. 

“It goes even further back [than university]. When I was a high school student in Luther College in Regina, I ran for high school SRC and it happened there,” Denis said. “And my dad is a retired soldier in the army and he told me it happened to him there.”

Denis said he remembers the incident during his bid to become a vice-president of law students’ association in 1999, although archives of the U of S newspaper The Sheafshow he also ran for university senate the previous year. According to Denis, after his original signs were defaced he embraced the joke and put up a second batch that read: “Don’t be a dick. Vote Denis.”