Getting young people to vote is a problem for many democracies across the world. As the United States gets ready for another general election, questions about how to increase young people’s participation in elections arise. Here in Canada, where political campaigns are primarily run by volunteers, young students bring new perspectives and experiences to the staff rooms.
Through political clubs on university campuses, federal parties can reach out to students and recruit them on their campaigns.
According to a 2013 study by Statistics Canada, youth aged 20 to 24 are among the most engaged in political activities such as signing petitions and participating in demonstrations or marches.
In the study, university students stood out with the highest participation rates for almost all of these types of activities.
Getting Involved
Matthew Melbourn, 20, vice-president of the University of Alberta Conservative Association, says he first got involved in politics when he was 15-years-old, volunteering with his then member of Parliament, Jason Kenney in his re-election campaign.
“Volunteering before I turned 18 and didn’t have the opportunity to vote was my only way of expressing my beliefs and political opinion in a meaningful way … I had a blast then and I have been privileged to have the opportunity to continue volunteering in different campaigns in both Edmonton and Calgary to maintain my involvement in the federal Conservative Party of Canada and provincial United Conservative Party,” Melbourn said.
Responsibilities of volunteers in political campaigns range from phone banking, delivering yard signs, and data entry, to hosting meet and greets for the MPs.
Daniel Minden, the 20-year-old president of the Liberal McGill Club, says he knows for a lot of people it is a crazy idea to go knock on strangers’ doors and talk to them about the policies of the Liberal party and ask them what they are feeling.
“We have been able to meet those challenges by putting a lot of emphasis on training, by ensuring that the volunteers are put in groups and they feel comfortable. So, they can feel like the campaigns are safe, inclusive spaces for them.”
Volunteers, unlike the few paid staff on the campaigns, do not receive any type of payment which makes their work solely based on a commitment for their cause and the personal ideals that tie them to their parties.
Interest in Politics
Mathew Kaminski, president of Conservative Concordia, says he was motivated to get involved in 2015, in his second year of CEGEP, the publicly funded pre‑university college in Québec’s education system, when Justin Trudeau was elected.
According to Kaminski, the volunteer numbers in his club have increased by over 100 per cent over the last year. He says it is still a challenge to interest young people in politics.
“It is hard to get your voice out there. It is hard to get people involved. There is a huge lack of involvement at our age and more people should get involved in politics and really understand how it affects their daily lives.”
Most students who are involved in politics are usually looking for ways to enhance their university degrees and broaden their social circle.
“I am studying global politics, so I think it has added a lot to my degree that I would not have necessarily been able to get in the classroom. Hands-on in real-life experience and just making those connections across Canada and within the party has complemented my degree a lot,” said Maddie Turenne, the vice-president of Carleton University Greens.
However, this can also be tricky for students who are pursuing a degree in a field that requires political neutrality.
It is hard to get your voice out there. It is hard to get people involved. There is a huge lack of involvement at our age and more people should get involved in politics and really understand how it affects their daily lives.
– Matthew Kaminiski, president of Conservative concordia
“I don’t think that I have the same journalistic credential I had prior to this. I won’t be able to pursue much of a non-partisan journalistic career going forward,” said Hartley Witten, communications director of Carleton Young Liberals who is also a fourth-year journalism student at Carleton University. “I don’t plan on being a political reporter of any sorts. I think that would be quite dishonest considering my involvement.”
Supporting Students
In 2019, student clubs were affected by the cuts Ontario Premier Doug Ford made, including the option he provided to opt-out of certain mandatory fees in universities.
Liberal Minden thinks university students are disproportionately affected by the decisions made in government.
“Although one might think that university students are too busy to care about politics, I think the opposite is true. It is super important because we are in these public institutions. It is important that we have a voice at the table, that we get involved and that we care about the government decisions that have such a huge impact on us.”
He believes university students are uniquely well placed to learn about politics.
In times like this, universities are depending on students working together with a strong united front. Political clubs are not shying away from that.
Conservative Kaminski said the Liberal club on his campus reached out to them and that they established a very strong relationship.
“We think it’s very important, more than having partisan competitiveness on campus, it is smarter to combine resources and capabilities and just try to reach out to a greater student body … If we can do that successfully and just introduce more people to politics we don’t really care who they decide to go for.”
The universities themselves play a big role in these political based clubs reaching out to a greater audience and functioning in full capacity. They also take on the role of monitoring the clubs and making sure everything is up to date with the government policies.
Melbourn is thankful for the help his club received from the University of Alberta and says his club won’t be possible without their help. He thinks it is wonderful that the university lets them plan events on campus.
“Sometimes in the university, there can be a lot of rules and a lot of red tape you have to go through to get events done. There have certainly been issues with free speech on campus in the University of Alberta. I don’t want to say restricting, but it hasn’t necessarily been a cohesive environment in which freedom of expression is tolerated. Hopefully, with the recent legislation passed by the provincial government that won’t be the case so much.”
Melbourn is referring to the Chicago principles, a set of guidelines that are intended to be a symbol of commitment to the freedom of speech and expression in post-secondary institutions. These principals are expected to prevent controversial groups and views from being censored on university campuses in Alberta.
Priorities
Another challenge that comes with volunteering in high-maintenance electoral campaigns is time management, especially for university students who often have to handle part-time jobs and classes.
Ryan Coyte, a member-at-large in Carleton University New Democrats says it starts with the relationship you build. He has found that people who are specifically connected to the political work understand that as soon as school starts, you have to prioritize that over the campaign.
“A lot of the campaigns I have been on were very understanding of time commitments. You’re doing as much or as little as you want. They are usually pretty competent with that.”
During this last federal election, university campuses were one of the hubs where voting was advertised and encouraged. This made the political clubs very essential in the process of getting people to decide who to vote for, but most importantly encouraging students to show up at voting booths.
“It is super important because we are in these public institutions. It is important that we have a voice at the table, that we get involved and that we care about the government decisions that have such a huge impact on us,”
– Daniel Minden, president of Liberal McGill club
In 2015, Elections Canada launched a pilot project to open temporary voting offices in locations regularly frequented by youth. Those visiting the offices were able to register and vote by special ballot on-site, or simply update their information on the list of electors.
The program has expanded to 121 offices at 109 post-secondary campuses across 86 electoral districts ever since the launch.
“We saw this year that Elections Canada put a huge priority on getting out to vote on campus. So, we worked very hard to identify Liberal supporters and remind them to go vote,” said Minden.
On a similar note, Kaminski says they have been working on building long-lasting relationships.
“We worked very closely with the party to educate millennials of our age and to let them know it is cool to be a conservative even as a millennial and there is a lot of great things we can do for students,” he said.
“If you give people an opportunity to get somewhere in life at a younger age, by the time they get to the age of an average candidate or a member of Parliament, their level of volunteer and professional experience will be so much, could be up to 30 plus years,” he added.
Kaminski is currently studying accounting, but he says he aspires to be a member of Parliament one day.
The student-run political clubs always have more room for new volunteers and they thrive on recruitment.
Minden is urging his fellow university members to become a part of the process.
“The decisions are made by the people who show up at the table. If a decision that is made frustrates you or angers you, the solution to that is not to sit there in hopelessness. The solution is to get out and knock on doors, to find someone you believe in and to go vote, ultimately.”
Feature graphic by Sara Mizannojehdi.
