High school and elementary school students across Canada vote

27 million canadians were eligible to vote in yesterday's election but ballots were also being cast by more than 700 000 kids right across the country they voted in a mock election all right so we have the results of that a minority liberal government with 116 seats well that sounds familiar but they also chose an ndp opposition giving that party 106 seats mary powell is a grade 11 student in coal harbor nova scotia there she is and jennifer key is a high school teacher in white court alberta good afternoon to both of you thanks very much for talking us through this and uh mary i want to start with you why was it important for you to vote yesterday even though it wasn't a vote that counted um it was really important for us because it's teaching us that once we even though they don't count right now once we turn 18 we will know how to go through and pick a politician that and candidate that we support and how to properly cast a ballot and jennifer i mean just the sheer numbers here sorry you don't have the backing of elections canada to do this presumably so 700 000 students voting in this uh it's a mammoth effort but clearly one you feel is important yeah i'm really really passionate about student vote and the work that civics does um it's so important to get the youth involved in our democratic process and get comfortable with it and so that they know how it works and that it is actually quite easy to become an educated voter and work their way through the process and it becomes a habit so that habit stays with them as they become tax-paying adults all right mary so walk me through the process um you know i think some people when they go and vote they always vote for the same person or the same party some people really engage and take a look at the issues and what their particular candidate thinks what did you do so what we did is during the first week of school my teacher came up and we started finding people that wanted to help out with student vote and once we got our team together we contacted each of the candidates from our riding and we held a virtual town hall at our school and so we had moderators and all the candidates show up on a google meet and they talked to us about what their plan was what they were going to do and we even had a chance to ask them questions from the students and then once that was over the next day we went through and we signed all the ballots that needed and we set up to have our mock election and we called down all the grades and gave them up their ballot and told them how to where they had to go behind the voting screens fill out their ballot and go and hand it in it was an awesome experience what was the biggest issue for you mary what was the sort of thing that you was most front of mind for you um it was really how crunched for time we were because of how close the election was to get the year and so it was just trying to get everything organized and what what about i just want to interrupt you just for a second to ask you know in terms of issues politically like what was the biggest issue when you were looking at you know who who to give your vote to was there a particular issue that really made the difference well i i really looked into like who related more to the youth and so when looking at it there um there was some of them and they were using what they they're they're using their voices and their words that they would use to talk to adults but we are all like young adults and not there yet so we it was really confusing for some of them but some of them like really related with the high school students okay that's good that's good um jennifer just you know walk me through this because there is a challenge with younger voters who are eligible to vote the challenge is that it's one of the lowest demographics in terms of voter participation i i'm making the assumption that this effort is attempting to be an antidote to that yeah i believe so i believe that through student vote and through the work that civics do um we're teaching and helping young people become comfortable with the process and how they can um become informed and so if they become used to the process it just becomes very natural um i've had many students who actually former students who wait for me on voting day so that we can go together and we kind of just go in a little caravan all the way down to the polling station and it's kind of their tradition on election day so the work that student votes does is it's based around the belief that voting is a habit and becoming involved in being civic minded is a habit and the more you practice it whether it's through mock election or just voting in classroom on classroom issues it becomes bigger for students and it's just something that they innately care about and want to continue doing when there are adults at voting age okay so mary you're grade 11. so is that are you 16 years old yes i am okay so you can work legally um really right across this this country do you think you should be able to vote legally because you can't before you're 18 right now i think by the time 1617 is when you really start to get like understanding wow i'm going to be an adult soon i should probably start looking into what is happening in the world and so yeah i think around 1617 we should be able to actually cast a proper ballot because it's also going to be our work this is our world we're going into it we're taking over because of like this is the next generation and we we need a choice and like a say in what happens as well was it fun oh it was it was so much fun what did you like most about it i i personally just liked the seeing everyone come down and fill out their ballot and put it in and like see how people actually wanted to cast a ballot at the school yeah that's pretty amazing and to be to do it um so quickly after the start of the school year like we many adults were already you know starting to think about the election before it was called and then only a five-week campaign you start school and you're right into it so i guess the next election is probably going to be you know at least 18 months away and maybe longer than that you might be voting in that next one yeah that's that's really exciting for me i'm excited to pass my first actual ballot all right we'll leave it there uh jennifer mary thanks so much really appreciate you talking about this thank you [Music] hi i'm vashi capello's host of power in politics see more of our show by subscribing to the cbc news channel or click the link for another video

Channel: CBC News

Views: 53,863

Keywords: Students, Canada Votes, Election, Liberal, NDP, CBC News

Id: TX7L02Xg-Uo

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021