This Monday and Tuesday (May 28th and 29th) Iroquois Ridge High School will be participating in the provincial Student Vote. This program is designed to measure the opinions of future generations of voters, and the results are tallied throughout the province and released to the media after general polling. Earlier this month, on the 15th of May, candidates from both of the ridings that Iroquois Ridge represents (from Oakville and Oakville North Burlington) came into our school to address the student body directly about their platforms and to encourage students to come out and vote.
Candidates were asked to introduce themselves, to discuss party platforms, and to answer the following questions:
- How much does the student vote matter to you?
- What are your plans to deal with Ontario's increasing deficit?
- How do you plan to increase job opportunities in Ontario, and as a result of that plan, do you plan on altering the minimum wage?
- How will your parties push for affordable housing, considering the unprecedented growth of Oakville and the surrounding Halton region? How will you consider the environment with regards to this?
- What is the biggest issue in our education system? (audience question)
Below are short summaries of the candidates’ responses.
OAKVILLE
Emily De Souza - Green Party
Emily, currently a student at the University of Guelph, is the youngest candidate here, and as such has a personal stake in student involvement. “We recognize that, you know, the result of [elections] vote[s] and the decisions made by government arguably have the most impact on you, and on this generation... you and I will be left with the repercussions,” she says, about why her party supports lowering the voting age to 16. This is her first time running for office and her first official debate, but she is an old hand at environmental activism, and talks in her introduction about her experience on conservation panels and as a travel writer focusing on the environment. She talks later in the debate about transparency (why the Green party have released their full platform), about lowering taxes on businesses and individuals, and about the importance of affordable housing. She also talked about the elimination of standardized testing, which seemed to get the support of the NDP candidate as well. She is, of course, also very interested in focusing more of our efforts on improving the environment (among other things, by raising mining royalties) and in preserving green spaces. She tells the audience to vote with their hearts: “We don’t need to choose between the lesser of two evils... you should be voting for what you believe in,” she says.
Kevin Flynn - Liberal Party
Kevin is the incumbent MPP of the Oakville district. He spent most of his introduction talking about the importance of young people getting involved in politics. This is obviously a very personal topic for him - he first ran for office at age 25, and personally helped found the Oakville Youth Advisory Committee, a platform for Oakville’s youth to contribute to the political landscape. Throughout the debate, he continues to focus on education and student involvement, talking about how understanding the student vote is a way of understanding the direction in which the country is going. On economic issues, he refers to the reputation of the Liberals in getting Ontario through the economic recession of ten years ago. In his opinion, the state of the economy and of employment today is very stable, and he wants to continue to invest “back into the community” in various projects and to continue raising the minimum wage so that it becomes an actually livable wage.
Lesley Sprague - New Democratic Party
Although she’s moved around a lot throughout her life, Lesley is coming back to her hometown of Oakville to represent the NDP in the upcoming election. She already has a good deal of experience with government and with social activism under her belt, and talks about driving the future forwards, painting a picture that the Conservatives are driving it back. When the topic changes to economic issues, she stresses why we go into debt as a province - to provide people with services that improve their lives and to stimulate the economy. It is really important to her to “keep moving forward” - she feels like a Progressive Conservative government will take steps backward on important social and economic issues. She talks about improving job training and paid work opportunities to help students get jobs directly out of school, and about decreasing student loan debt as much as possible. She wants to ensure affordable housing, and improve healthcare accessibility.
Stephen Crawford - Progressive-Conservative Party
Stephen has lived in this area for years, and focuses in his introduction on his loyalty towards the area and the province. Having studied and worked in economic fields throughout his life, he seems most interested in questions about economics. He is very worried about the current state of the economy, talking again and again about how much Ontario is in debt and how much he wants to work on bringing more jobs to the province. He also, uniquely among the candidates, objects to raising the minimum wage. Stephen says that if the PC party wins, they will support the changes already codified in government but not raise minimum wage any further, worrying about the speed of these changes. In terms of education, he wants to improve technological education in particular, preparing kids for a more tech-focused world. He seems very concerned with changing the Liberal status quo, and paints the election as a choice between the PC party and all the other parties at the table.
The remaining candidate, Spencer Oklobdzija, representing the Libertarian party, could not be reached for participation.
OAKVILLE - NORTH BURLINGTON
Alvin Tedjo - Liberal Party
Alvin, himself a Student Vote alumnus and a member of the Sheridan College faculty, also seems particularly invested in student involvement. He encourages the audience to go out and try to get involved in politics, trying to learn more about their local candidates and about issues in which they’re interested. Alvin himself seems to focus on child care and education, but contributes to the discussion on other issues, responding to Stephen’s debt concerns with a thorough explanation of the difference between the debt and the deficit. (The deficit is how much greater or smaller the debt has grown over the year, whereas the debt is total amount of debt Ontario is in.) He points out that the latest deficits have actually been fairly balanced, and that there are more important things to focus on. He explains that the reason minimum wage is being raised so quickly is because the change has been a long time in coming - He talks a lot about the strides forward the Liberal party has already made in the domain of education, dealing with financial literacy, mental health, technology, and sex ed, and argues with the Conservatives’ position against the latter.
The remaining candidates for Oakville - North Burlington - Frank DeLuca, Effie Triantafilopoulos, Marianne Workman, Charles Zach, and Saima Zaidi - did not respond or could not be reached for participation.
All of the candidates agree that no matter who you support, they want you to keep informed about current issues, and to get out and vote. Everyone at the school will get an opportunity to cast their vote on Monday or Tuesday in the Student Vote polls. Students 18 and over can vote in the formal election, on June 7th - make sure to remind your parents to register if they can, as well! If you’re 16 or 17, you can register as a future voter now. Some also suggested other ways to get involved - there are political youth groups like the youth advisory committee which high school students can join, and anyone can call or visit a local candidate to volunteer for their campaign.
If you still can’t decide who to vote for, below are the full published platforms of all of the parties with representatives in Oakville or Oakville North - Burlington. VoteCompass is a very good resource for anyone voting in an election for figuring out which party best matches your political views. In addition, you can watch a formal debate from the candidates of the Oakville - North Burlington riding here.
We hope to see you all next week!
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