Area students vote in parallel elections

EAST CENTRAL — While the legal voting age is 18 in Canada, students across the area cast their own federal votes this past week through the Civix’s Student Vote.

The project is held parallel with the federal election and offers students an in-depth look into the Canadian election process and a chance to cast their ballots.

Chelsea Boyke, a teacher at LeRoy School, said she wanted to teach her students how to be informed voters now so that they can become informed voters later on when they cast their ballot as an adult.

“I wanted them to pay attention to politics and always be informed when they go to vote, not just sitting by and not voting because they’re not aware of what’s going on.”

As well as learning about the election process and researching the candidates, making informed decisions based on personal values was a big part of teaching students how to become informed voters, Boyko said.

Boyko’s students also had to write a persuasive essay on who they supported and why.

Students at Humboldt Collegiate Institute (HCI) also cast their vote on Oct. 21 with voting time available in social science classes, as well as to all HCI students during the lunch hour.

Offering this hands-on approach to teaching politics and debating issues was a great opportunity to make textbook material tangible to students, said teacher David Millette.

“A lot of these issues for debate are new to the students so that within itself presented another educational opportunity to really understand what is going on,” he said.

Within these debates, students also had the chance to compare their own political ideals with that of the political platforms of the parties, Millette said.

Teacher Curtis Strueby also took his Lake Lenore students through the voting process with students casting their votes on Oct. 17.

Students looked at both the election process and the political party platforms. Before they cast their vote, each class looked at party policy on different topics; like climate, economic policies, international relations and indigenous affairs, and how that aligned with their own values.

Education was an important issue to all Grade 6 to 12 students in Lake Lenore, especially to the older ones who are starting to make plans for their post-secondary education, Strueby said.

Civix, with assistance from Elections Canada, provides student vote material free to schools across the country, including lesson plans on important discussion topics. Strueby said this was a great resource to have in order to participate in the federal election.

According to a post on Civix’s Facebook page on Oct. 18, more than a million votes were cast in nearly 7,000 Canadian schools from all 338 polling divisions.

Results

Humboldt Collegiate

Humboldt Public

Lake Lenore School

LeRoy School

Tisdale Middle & Secondary School

Tisdale Elementary