High school and elementary students in the Cariboo-Prince George had the unique opportunity to run an election of their own in October.
Student Vote released their results on Tuesday, with a startlingly similar result to what we saw happen nationally.
“Last year we did the municipal election, so we decided it would be a really good idea to do the federal one as well,” says PGSS teacher Steve Bordeleau. “We’ve got kids in here that will be voting within the next couple years, so showing them how easy it is to vote, how accessible it is, that’s a really important thing.”
While preparation for the student election looked different across the 43 schools in the riding that participated, Bordeleau presented some interesting projects to his class.
Students were split into groups to design pamphlets for each political party, and were required to research platforms and ideology.
“Then they separated into political party groups, and we actually had a debate where I posed nine questions to them. They answered as that party would, and we had another class come in to watch the debate and rebuttals,” explains Bordeleau, “They were very involved in it. It’s easy to joke around, but I see some future politicians in my class because of how passionate they were.”
The combined vote from all schools saw Tracy Calogheros and the Liberals take a strong lead with 35 percent of the vote, with the NDP and Conservatives tying for second with 21 percent apiece.
The results in the Prince George-Peace River riding nearly reflected the actual results, with Bob Zimmer and the conservatives winning 37% of the student vote, Liberal Matt Shaw taking second place with 29.6%, and Elizabeth Biggar climbing to third with 14.7%.
While many of the students came into the class already holding political beliefs- whether those views come from home or of the student’s own volition- Bordeleau is happy the others had the chance to learn about national issues and what each party stands for.
“We’ve got terrible voter turnout nationally, and there are cases of voter apathy, but I hope through educational means this set of students will decide to become voting citizens, and exercise their democratic rights.”