Jason Lamarche pictured in 2011 and more recently, with his now-shaved mustache. Screenshot via Youtube/photo via LinkedIn
Politicians typically try to maintain a clean image during an election, but one Vancouver mayoral candidate bucked that trend when he decided to sport what can most accurately be described as a Hitler mustache this campaign season.Jason Lamarche, who is running as an independent in the city’s upcoming election, created campaign posters featuring a black and white image of himself bald with a mustache made infamous by Hitler and the text: “MAYOR LAMARCHE RENT CONTROL 1 BR, $500 MAX 2 BR, $1,000 MAX.” Short of not living in Vancouver, I can’t think of a conceivable way in which he could achieve those benchmarks.But moving on to the more pressing issue of this stache, as reported by Vancouver Is Awesome, he shaved it in time for a draw at City Hall last Friday that selected the order in which candidates’ names will appear on the ballot. Lamarche’s name will appear first—a prospect that reportedly caused him to let out a “hoot.”According to the Vancouver Courier, he said his position on the ballot will “continuously put eyes on me, which means I have to be at the top of my game.” That’s something Lamarche has struggled with in the past; while running in the 2011 election cycle, it was revealed that he’d posted a “date matrix” on his website to rank women he was seeing based on things like how good she was in bed and how cute their kids would turn out. The women were simply numbered with the exception of one he dubbed “French Woman I haven’t met yet.”
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He also allegedly posted offensive entries to Urban Dictionary under the pseudonym DowntownJ—which was Lamarche’s nickname when he skateboarded. A CTV story from 2011 reports one of Lamarche’s alleged entries was for the term “hoenut hole”—”another term for a slut's asshole." DowntownJ also posted derogatory comments about Jews, and overweight people.Lamarche claimed the entries were made by someone who impersonated him.His website says he wants to create an “illegal Immigration Control Enforcement unit” in order to “manage the growing number of illegal migrants that live and work in Vancouver which drains our precious resources and harms legal immigrants who took the correct steps to live and work in Vancouver.”Seems like that mustache was pretty on brand.Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox.