These high school students say municipal politicians should talk to young people more
CBC
When a group of five Grade 11 students at Eastwood Collegiate Institute in Kitchener, Ont., were asked if they were paying attention to the municipal election, they all said no.
Aiden Devine says he can't vote yet, so he's not following the election as closely as maybe he should. But he also believes candidates could do a better job of trying to talk to him and his classmates.
"Outreach to younger people just isn't there," he said.
"I find a lot of the candidates tend to reach toward more of the older generation because they tend to vote more and care more. But I feel like if we got younger people to vote, then there would be a lot of change."
Zuhal Haidary said municipal candidates don't appear to be making an effort to reach young people.
"A lot of teenagers are on social media. So we'd pay attention if there's some ads on Instagram or maybe TikTok," she said.
It's not that Haidary isn't interested in politics. She said she'd like to become a lawyer and federal politics appeals to her because she doesn't see herself reflected in politicians.
"I'm actually new in Canada and now I'm getting into this," she said. "When I see some politicians work and stuff, there's a lot of white people, so I really want to be one of the people of colour in there … I want to be the change."
Abigail Sevigny said their dad is "very into politics" and so he's talked about the election.
But they agreed with Devine: "There's definitely not enough outreach to younger kids."
"Adding more publicity to social media, schools — it would make kids, like even before you're a voting age, more interested. So then when you're of voting age, you're intrigued and you want to vote," Sevigny said.
The five students spoke to Craig Norris, host of CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition, about the municipal election. They're all in George Fletcher's Grade 11 law class. Sevigny said Fletcher reached out to local candidates asking them to send in slides with information about their campaigns that could be shared with students on TVs in the school.
"Not one politician emailed him back about that," Sevigny said.
"To me and to younger people, that just kind of feels like it's not a priority to politicians," they added.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.