I am completely non-partisan when it comes to municipal, national or federal elections. Elections at my university, however, are a completely different story, especially when it comes to the student union president position.
Every time there is an election, I go through each of the platforms and decide which one is the most plausible and aligned with my beliefs. I think there have even been a few times I’ve abstained if I didn’t feel like candidates have represented me adequately.
Recently, Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff embarked on a campaign to get the opinions of Canadian youth. A Conversation with Michael Ignatieff reached many universities, including Dalhousie, McMaster, Calgary, Manitoba and UBC. At most locations, the event was over capacity and students had to be turned away.
The campaign was a kick-off to the Canada at 150: Rising to the Challenge conference that will be held in March 2010. The conference is supposed to be non-partisan, yet is hosted by the Liberal Party, so take from that what you will.
I was in class, so I couldn’t attend the event at McMaster, and was also unfortunately unable to attend the online chat because I was doing some work for McMaster’s upcoming presidential elections. However, upon the reading the transcript of the online chat, I thought there were two very important questions which were asked.
[Comment From Mike Brown]
Mr Ignatieff, I would like to thank you for your cross country tour of universities. I had the opportunity to see you speak here in Calgary. My question is as follows: I recognize that post-secondary education is a provincial issue but just like health care it can be influenced by the federal government. Here in Alberta we are facing large increases in tuition each year without a comparable increase in quality of education. In fact, the quality has tended to decrease. Should the Liberal party form the government, how do you hope to help students cope with increasing tuition and, as a result, increasing student debt?
Michael Ignatieff: You get the grades, you get to go. That needs to be our motto for higher education in Canada. In practice this will mean higher levels of student aid, more grants than loans, and where loans are applied, longer repayment terms and lower interest rates where possible. We also need to incentivize hiring of young graduates from colleges and universities. The current level of youth unemployment–double the national average–is just too high.
I disagree with what Ignatieff says here based on what I have experienced: as someone who was illegible for OSAP, I couldn’t get bursaries or scholarships, even if my grades were high enough. Despite being a first-generation post-secondary student, I wasn’t eligible for that bursary once again because my parents’ income prevented me from getting OSAP.
However, I agree with what he says on hiring young grads: there are tons of us out there who want work, but are finding that companies are not always interested in new hires. Of course, this is also where TalentEgg comes in, but enough shameless self promotions.
Do you agree with Ignatieff’s statement here? Why or why not?
[Comment From Joe Turcotte]
Mr. Ignatieff, your recent university tour and this online town hall seem to indicate that you’re hoping to reach out to a new, and often overlooked, segment of the Canadian population– the youth. Could you please explain what role you see for Canada’s youth in politics today and describe any changes that the political system itself should take to engage/incorporate us?
Michael Ignatieff: I got involved first time when I was about 17 and once bitten at an early age, you stay bitten. Parties need to reach out and engage young people and give them responsibility early on. I was a national youth organizer for Trudeau at age 21, and that was a challenge. Bottom line: I trust young people because when I was young someone was crazy enough to trust me.
I completely agree with Ignatieff here. I think there is so much voter apathy amongst youth because there is no candidate to adequately represent us and, furthermore, we often see the issues the candidates present as irrelevant to our age group.
So, why are we so apathetic?
After all, we are the ones who will lead our country in the not-too-distant future. Is the problem that we don’t want to get involved in politics, or is it that we don’t know how to get involved?
What can we do to solicit change? How do we want Canada to function in the future?
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