The Garden City Refugee

Campaigning on Our Dime

May 23, 2026

May 1 marked the first official day candidates could register for the upcoming municipal election. Two candidates have registered to run for mayor. There’s Ann-Marie Zammit, the radical Marxist who makes Mat “tax ’em ’till it hurts” Sendzcoe Siscoe look fiscally responsible, and former New Blue candidate Jimmy Jackson.

There’s little doubt Sendzcoe Siscoe will be joining the fray and seeking reappointment to his current office as well. As some have speculated online, he’s just waiting to hear if his fellow Liberal Doug Ford will appoint him as the new regional chair. If and when he finds out to the contrary, his nomination papers will be in the next day. City staff are undoubtedly already hard at work prepping those voting machines to engineer the result they want. To keep the gravy train going and retain the govern-by-decree power they revel in.

But whereas the declared candidates are out campaigning on their own dime, Sendzcoe Siscoe has begun campaigning on ours. While Rome burns, he’s been frantically running from photo op to photo op at a dizzying pace.

• May 1: Decorating “Smile Cookies” at Davinder Tim Hortons.
• May 1: Photo op at the Niagara Childrens’ Center.
• May 8: Polish Open House as part of the Folk Arts Festival.
• May 9: Photo op at the Walk and Roll event in support of Muscular Dystrophy Canada.
• May 9: Family Day event at the Niagara Military Heritage Center.
• May 10: Ukrainian Community Open House as part of the Folk Arts Festival.
• May 12: Posing with the Ridley College basketball team in council chambers.
• May 14: Aspira Heatherwood’s First Responder Appreciation Breakfast.
• May 16: Grand opening of a new Dairy Queen.
• May 16: Grand opening of Lokanta Mediterranean cafe in Port Dalhousie. (no mention, of course, of the three failed ventures in that location over the past decade)
• May 17: Celebrating the one-year anniversary of Bright Pours Cafe.
• May 22: Opening of Specsavers’ third location in St. Catharines.
• May 22: Grand opening of Axon Pain Clinic.

It’s a wonder he can keep up. His Sunshine List chief of staff gofer has probably had to put in for some overtime as she snaps shot after shot of him, no doubt wearing out the camera on her phone. Sendzcoe Siscoe might want to consider a more natural look instead of always posing with that stupid grin. Clearly, he doesn’t realize how juvenile he looks in those shots. But what does he care? It’s free publicity, courtesy of the St. Catharines taxpayer. And any publicity is good publicity in his eyes.

Yours truly isn’t the only one to have noticed this sharp uptake in gratuitous photo ops. The best line came from someone who asked if he needed strong mayor powers for his photo op at Bright Pours Cafe. Ward 3 Councilor Mark Stevens has frequently been at Sendzcoe’s Siscoe’s side as well. As if he thinks that’s going to help his own reelection campaign. He obviously isn’t a believer in guilt by association. Someone online suggested he might been there to help hand out free coupons at the Specsavers photo op.

Whatever the case, Sendzcoe Siscoe is really going to town. Flipping us the bird in the process while he gets his mug in front of as many cameras as he can. Proving that he’s yet another politician imbued with a sense of entitlement to treat the public treasury like his personal checking account.