If it had been up to students, Doug Ford would be the mayor of Toronto right now.
Like their parents, they also elected his celebrity brother, Rob Ford to Toronto city council last month.
This week, it’s Burnaby students’ turn to show who they’d put in the mayor’s seat if they were old enough to vote.
Sixteen local schools have signed up for Student Vote, a parallel election program for students that has coincided with official elections across the country since 2003.
At registered schools, students have studied up on government and democracy, and researched the local issues and candidates.
The activities culminate this week with an authentic in-school vote on the same candidates their parents will be picking from on Saturday.
The student elections feature official ballots and ballot boxes, with student volunteers acting as election officials.
“The thing that is really so exciting is that it really gets students involved,” Burnaby South social studies teacher Jocelyn Beaton told the NOW.
Beaton, who hosted advance voting for South students in her classroom Thursday, has registered students for at least three of the parallel elections, after hearing about the program from a colleague who had signed up.
“What really surprised me was how excited the students were,” she said. “Once I saw that, I just thought, ‘This is something I will always do while I’m teaching.’”
It’s tough to get students interested in politics, Beaton said, especially at a local level, and programs like Student Vote help.
“I think the more that we can do where we have these simulations, then the easier it is going to be for them to transition into the adult world and hopefully to participate more,” she said.
Unlike their counterparts around the province, Burnaby students have closely mirrored their parents’ choices in past Student Vote elections.
In 2013, B.C. students elected an NDP majority, giving the New Democrats more than 62 per cent of the seats in the provincial Legislature and the B.C. Liberals just under 25 per cent. Their parents, of course, returned a majority Liberal government with 57 per cent of the seats, compared to 40 per cent for the NDP.
In Burnaby, however, parents and students were on the same page, with both groups returning NDP candidates Kathy Corrigan, Raj Couhan and Jane Shin in Burnaby-Deer Lake, Burnaby-Emonds and Burnaby-Lougheed, respectively; and B.C. Liberal Richard Lee in Burnaby North.
This will be the first time municipal candidates face the student vote since the program has never shadowed a local election in B.C. before.
And school board trustee candidates will have to wait another four years to find out whether kids would give them a seat.
In the interest of simplifying an already lengthy ballot, Student Vote decided to make trustee candidates optional on the ballot this time around.
“This decision was influenced by our concerns about accuracy and logistics, including the challenge in getting ballots out on time and building an effective results system,” wrote research and communications co-ordinator Dan Allan. “The late start to the school year was also a consideration as we know that it has impacted the time available among schools and our own election readiness.”
Students vote on Nov. 13 and 14, and results are released when polls close on grown-up election night on Nov. 15.
To find out more about Student Vote, including results from past elections, visit www.studentvote.ca.
Follow Cornelia on Twitter, @CorNaylor
