Canadian elections are in my blood. I’ve been watching them since I was a kid. I was the only one in my Grade 5 class who could name every premier in the country. I grew up sitting beside my dad, watching the news every night—sometimes twice a day. We lived on CBC and talked politics like some families talk about sports. So, it’s really no surprise that I love teaching about government, especially during election time.
Over the years, I’ve had some of the most interesting conversations with students who are eager to share who they would vote for—and why. I’ll never forget a Grade 3 student who told me, without hesitation, that he would vote NDP because “they believe in science.” On the flip side, another student once told me his parents were voting NDP, but he was going to vote Liberal because, as he put it, “Tom Mulcair is creepy.” He had a whole list of reasons, but that one stuck with me. Every student has their own reasons for choosing who they support. I even had a parent tell me once that her son had decided to vote the opposite of her—because he was voting for whoever his dad was voting for! When we discussed it in class, that same student could clearly explain the pipeline issue and articulate why he made his choice.
One of my favourite teaching programs is CIVIX’s Student Vote. It gives students a voice, lets them participate in decision-making, and teaches them to think critically about our electoral system. Over the years, I’ve noticed that Student Vote results often mirror real election trends. I’ve even tried to look up past results to see how close they were to the actual outcomes, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of accessible information about past Student Vote winners.
Which brings me to today.
Now, I work with multilingual learners who haven’t been in Canada for even a full year yet. I asked a few of them how they felt about voting and whether they could explain their thinking. What stood out to me was that every single one of them said they voted for the candidate with the strongest platform on immigration. One student said about the person they chose, “They will help with my situation.” These are students in Grades 4 and 5. Every time I participate in Student Vote, I’m blown away by the depth of thought the next generation brings to the table—their discussions, their decision-making process, and how they choose who to support.
