If students had been the voters in Monday’s federal election, the outcome would have been a little bit different.
Across the country, primary and secondary school students held mock elections in Student Vote Canada. Schools registered to participate and could involve either specific classrooms or the entire student body. In the Huntsville area, the following schools participated: Huntsville Alternate Education and Training Centre, Huntsville High School, Huntsville Public School, Irwin Memorial, Muskoka Christian School, Muskoka Montessori School, Pine Glen, Riverside, Saint Mary’s, Spruce Glen, and V.K. Greer.
In Parry Sound-Muskoka, where a combined total of 3,244 votes were cast at 24 schools, the riding’s students would have sent Green Party candidate, Gord Miller, to Ottawa.
Gord Miller (Green) – 1,131 votes (34.86 per cent)
Scott Aitchison (Conservative) – 805 (24.82 per cent)
Tom Young (NDP) – 708 (21.82 per cent)
Trisha Cowie (Liberal) – 531 (16.37 per cent)
Daniel Predie Jr (Independent) – 69 votes (2.13 per cent)
Federally, students would still have elected a Liberal minority, although with fewer seats, followed by the NDP and then the Conservatives. Across the country, 1,181,053 votes were reported from 7,855 schools.
Liberal – 110 seats (32.26 per cent)
NDP – 99 seats (29.03 per cent)
Conservative – 94 seats (27.57 per cent)
Green Party – 28 seats (8.21 per cent)
Bloc Québécois – 10 seats (2.93 per cent)
People’s Party – 0 seats
The grade 5/6 students in Mme Campbell, Mme Thatcher, and Mme Janelle’s classes at Huntsville Public School made their way to the Algonquin Theatre on Monday, October 21 to cast their ballots as part of Student Vote Canada.
The students spent several weeks leading up to election day learning about Canada’s government, the federal elections, and the voting process, said Campbell. Then, on the morning of October 21, they walked through town with signs to promote the importance of voting. At a mock polling station set up in the Algonquin Theatre, each student got to cast their vote.
Neveah, a grade five student in Campbell’s class told her, “Voting is important because it impacts our future.”
Campbell added, “From a teacher’s perspective, I have never seen students more engaged and excited about learning. They have been so interested and motivated to learn about our government and the candidates.”
Student Vote Canada is a national program by CIVIX, “a non-partisan, national registered charity dedicated to building the skills and habits of active and engaged citizenship among young Canadians,” according to their website. The mock vote is made possible by Elections Canada.
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Great idea !!! Good lesson for the student’s future.
My daughter was part of this opportunity to practice voting and it involved weeks of discussions and reviewing platforms of all the parties and then creating presentations about candidates and their affiliated political parties. The information that she shared at home was beyond the climate change issue. She talked about childcare, healthcare, and affordable housing, among other things. The teachers in our community are doing great things and our children are more involved then ever. We should never underestimate our education system or our children to understand the world in which they are growing up – one which will be drastically different due to our changing climate.
IMHO …No one should be shocked or upset by the results! Especially when all the students are coached by the teachers about climate change and global warming … every day ..and ,, every night on social media and .. every time the news is on TV! I find it hard to believe that grades 5 & 6 have any comprehension about fiscal responsibility or government money management or government funding or government debt or ‘income’ taxes or jobs or ‘working’ and … have never had to worry about personal finances and personal well being! This would be to ‘hard’ for teachers to teach or discuss or debate ..with ‘children’ .. so the entire teaching theme is climate change etc etc!