Student Vote 2019

Who was able to achieve victory as a result of the student vote? With the election results now official, Canadians have found out whether their vote propelled their candidate towards the Parliament or not. Students around the country have also had a chance to experience balloting, with many casting their votes within their schools.

In Heritage Woods Secondary School, 589 students participated in the student vote; majority of them making educated voting decisions by applying the topics learned from the various Social Studies courses. The candidates presented on the ballots had been the candidates representing the Port Moody-Coquitlam riding. The candidates presented to the students included Bonita Zarillo for the NDP, Sara Badiei for the Liberal Party, Nelly Shin for the Conservative Party, Bryce Watts for the Green Party, Jayson Chabot for the People’s Party, and Roland Verrier for the Marxist-Leninist Party. Before choosing a candidate, students were shown the parties platform through videos filmed by CTV News. These videos allowed the voting experience to be educational as each student would have to weigh the pros and cons of each of the platforms.

The competition was strikingly similar to the original one, with three female candidates from the NDP, Conservative Party, and Liberal Party. These three parties were in a head-to-head race with results differing by a small margin, each battling for the majority. In the end, the NDP won with 152 votes (25.8%), with Conservatives following closely behind with 144 votes (24.4%), and the Liberals in third place with 134 votes (22.7%). The Green Party also received a high number of votes, with 117 ballots (19.8%) being cast in their name.

As the two most controversial parties, both the Marxist-Leninist and People’s Party received the lowest number of votes compared to the previous four, with the ML Party ending with 24 votes, and the PPC finishing with only 18 votes.

Across Canada, over 1 million students voted, and the results were similar to the actual federal election. The Liberals won a minority government with 110 seats, the NDP followed closely with 99 seats, the Conservatives gained 94 seats, the Green Party acquired 28 seats, and Bloc Quebecois managed to gather 9 seats across the province of Quebec.

Although the results of the student vote didn’t count for anything, the experience undoubtedly prepared the future voters for the next federal election.

Written by Soniya Tagirova-Sirotkina