SaltWire E-Edition

Students will be left out

PAUL WOZNEY GUEST COLUMN

As president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU), a key component of my mandate is advocating for quality public education across our province.

The NSTU is not opposed to the creation of fixed-date elections — we see them as a positive. We also believe it is critically important to engage and educate our youth about the value of participating in the electoral process.

We are concerned that setting July 15th as the date of all future elections in Nova Scotia will make it much more challenging for teachers to accomplish this worthy goal.

For many years, the NSTU has been a proud supporter of CIVX — a non-partisan, national registered charity dedicated to building engaged citizenship among young Canadians — and its Student Vote program.

Hundreds of our members and thousands of their students participate in this program each and every electoral cycle.

Speaking not just as the NSTU president, but as the parent of three teenagers, I've seen first-hand the enthusiasm this program creates in the hearts and minds of our youth.

Part of the effectiveness of Student Vote is that it runs parallel to our provincial and federal elections. Students are able to watch televised debates, follow the news coverage and participate in conversations with their friends and family members in real time, prior to making an informed choice and casting a ballot.

Students are also assigned roles that replicate what happens at actual polling stations so they can gain greater insight into the process. The fact that following election day, final Student Vote tallies are made public and reported in the media only serves to give greater weight to this process for students.

Setting the date of future elections during the school year could actually help strengthen Student Vote by providing teachers with more certainty and time to prepare.

However, I fear setting election dates in the summer, when classrooms are empty, will erode the program's effectiveness.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Elections are organic events that can't be reproduced with a video or a textbook. Each cycle is different and at times unpredictable.

Elections are history in the making. They dominate public discourse, we watch them on TV and now on social media.

They are exciting, they are compelling and they matter for all of us, so it's important that our youth feel included and not isolated from the process.

Historically, Nova Scotia has set the standard for democratic engagement. We are the oldest democracy in the county, and our provincial legislature is the only one in Canada in which members of the public can speak directly to lawmakers about legislation before the house through the Law Amendments committee.

However, if we set the date for all future elections as July 15th, Nova Scotia will be the only province in Canada where students of all ages aren't able to take part in Student Vote program simultaneously with the general election. Respectfully, I just don't think you can recreate the realism, complexity and nuance of a 30-day campaign with a pre-packaged teaching aid.

Creating thoughtful, civically minded young people should be a priority for our education system, and I think all members of our legislature share this belief.

The example we set today in the classroom when it comes to democracy will be the standard future generations will come to expect and ultimately work to protect.

That's why I'm urging the Nova Scotia government to reconsider and amend the date for fixed elections currently contained in Bill 1 and replace it with a date that falls within the academic calendar of our public school system.

This relatively small adjustment will have a major impact on future generations of voters in our province, whose job it will ultimately be to both maintain and strengthen the system of democratic representation we as Nova Scotians currently enjoy and expect.

ART

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2021-10-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281608128642633

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