Students have a lot of things on their plates: their studies, part-time jobs, extracurriculars. For some, they’re also finding time to run for political office.
This is the reality for Elizabeth Fraser, who will be going to school part-time in the fall, splitting her time between attending classes at Carleton University and campaigning for the Green Party of Canada in her home riding of Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, located 20 minutes outside of Peterborough, Ont.
The fourth-year environmental studies student will be going on leave without pay from her job at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and taking a part-time course load at Carleton, with only one class requiring her to be physically on campus.
It’s not an ideal situation, said Fraser, but a lot of things—such as canvassing over the phone—she will be able to do remotely.
Fraser first got involved in politics at Carleton with the Young Greens group on campus. She later became the president of the group, and was offered the chance to run by the federal Green Party in this upcoming election.
Currently, Fraser is assembling her team and researching for her campaign, which will get started properly when the writ drops, likely to be sometime in September.
Millennials account for more than a quarter of the population of Canada, according to The Nielsen Company. This makes them the largest voting block in Canada.
This means they “will certainly have a lot of influence in the next election in Canada,” according to Cameron Wales, Brockville city councillor.
Millennials make up the generation born between the years of 1981 and 1996. Wales said now, this group are at an age where the majority are focused on starting a career, and becoming more involved in politics.
More young people are needed in elected office, Wales said.
“Diversity in terms of age on council hasn’t quite reached parallel with diversity in age in our society,” Wales said.
The Carleton chapter of the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) recently held a panel discussion called #ElectMillenials.
Michael Levitt, MP for York Centre and one of the panelists, said there’s “not enough millennials getting involved in the system.”
In parliament, 11 out of 122 MPs from Ontario are millennials.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 45, with the most recent cabinet shuffle has created one of the youngest cabinets ever, with an age average of 50 years. But, that still means most were born more than a decade after the cutoff age for being considered a millennial.
Age barrier
“I think age was a huge barrier for accepting of people running,” Jette said. “People thought, ‘You’re not gonna be able to hold your own in a council setting.’”
Wales was elected to be a councillor at 22-years-old last year. He said Brockville has had young people in elected office before, which helped voters he talked to be comfortable with the idea of voting him in.
“It’s always great to see yourself reflected in your elected representatives,” he said. “I think that’s one of the more important elements about democracy. They should reflect, to the greatest extent, the makeup of the majority of society.”
Wales is often approached by other council members to provide the youth perspective, even though sometimes he said he doesn’t always have the answers.
Coming in as a younger person, Fraser said she was cognizant of the fact that she would be in charge of people older than her.
“I was going into it assuming it was going to be an issue, because sometimes there’s some hesitation when a young person comes in, is delegating and telling people what to do,” she said.
“But I haven’t had that issue. I’m really grateful to my campaign manager for being open.”
“Age isn’t too much of an issue, a lot of older people who are Green supporters are used to that younger energy on the discussion table, so I haven’t had too many obstacles,” she added.
Issue focused
Garnett Genius, 32, is the Conservative MP for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan and also attended the #ElectMillenials panel. He said millennials are often more passionate about specific issues.
“In older generations, serving in political office and the community was always a given, just something you did. Millennials always ask ‘why?’” he said. “But this gives itself to greater passion dictated focus on a few specific things.”
Cameron Rose Jette is a Carleton student, who ran in last year’s city council election in the Cumberland riding in Orléans.
“As someone coming from the background I have, it’s not often represented and I thought I had interesting ideas,” they said.
Jette is trans and has a physical disability. They said the community they grew up in is normally very conservative, and the election gave them an opportunity to “open some minds and share some perspectives.”
Ultimately, Jette did not win the election. But, they said they were surprised by the 750 votes they did win and took that as a sign of progress.
When Jette was offered a chance to run for the federal NDP in this upcoming election, they decided against running because of the time commitment and concerns that some of the issues they were passionate about wouldn’t be a priority of the party. Running on city council allowed them to share these perspectives.
“I was able to have my own views and say what I thought, instead of forming it to fit the party’s views,” they said. “I was totally open to being as radical as I wanted to be, because I could, and I think this opened a lot of people’s minds.”
Wales said the climate strikes which are going on around the world now show signs of promise for youth involvement in politics.
“It helps if you’ve got somebody who’s 15 and they are climate striking right now. In four years, I want that person to run for municipal office in Ontario,” said Cameron Wales, Brockville councillor.
“And that’s the trick. We want to make sure there’s carry-through and there’s that passion that is developed and cultivated when young people show it, that they feel empowered to run for office.”
And when young people get involved in politics, the perspectives of millennials and younger people have value in creating change, said Genius.
“No matter how smart you are, you only have so much experience doing a certain thing,” he said. “The optimism of experience is sometimes what it takes, to get things done.”
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