If students were the ones voting in the federal election, things wouldn’t look too differently.
Student Vote Canada holds mock elections in tandem with the official elections. According to the Student Vote Canada website, the program “gives students the opportunity to experience the voting process firsthand and practice the habits of active and informed citizenship.”
The results from Student Vote Canada have Rachel Blaney winning the election, with roughly 36 per cent of the vote. In the real election, Blaney has 35.84 per cent of the vote. However, things start to look a bit different with the runners up.
Conservative candidate Shelley Downey still came in second, with 24.68 per cent of the vote, but Jessica Wegg of the Green Party struck more of a chord with the younger crowd. Wegg’s student vote share is 18.19 per cent. The Liberals were in fourth with 10.81 per cent of the vote, followed by the People’s Party of Canada (6.26 per cent), Maverick Party (2.42 per cent) and the Marxist-Leninist Party (1.8 per cent).
Schools from across the riding participated in the Student Vote program. Most of the votes came from Carihi Secondary School in Campbell River (564), followed by École Phoenix Middle School, also in Campbell River, at 397 votes. Brooks Secondary School in Powell River (305) was third, and Miracle Beach Elementary School in Black Creek had the fourth-most votes at 119.
Carihi Secondary’s results were basically the same as the larger student vote for the riding, with some differences in percentages. Brooks Secondary preferred the Green Party of Canada to the Conservatives, but the NDP had nearly half of the student vote there. École Phoenix Middle School also mirrored the main student vote count for the riding, while Miracle Beach Elementary bucked the trend. There, Conservatives took the lead, followed by the Greens, the NDP then the Liberals. The People’s Party of Canada followed, and the Marxist-Leninist party defeated the Maverick Party by one vote.
Almost 800,000 students voted across Canada in the mock elections. In the national results, the students would have elected the Liberals to a minority government, with the NDP forming the official opposition.
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marc.kitteringham@campbellrivermirror.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
