In the last federal election, youth aged 18–24 turned out to vote at 38.8 per cent compared to the general population’s 61.1 per cent turnout. The “Storm the Dorm” campaign aims to change that.
The initiative, championed by the Council for Canadians as part of their “Game Changer” campaign, has garnered support from the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) to help get the message about the upcoming federal election out to SFU students.
SFU student Deven Azevedo, an organizer for the campaign through the SFSS Advocacy Committee, said that the “basic idea is to just talk to them, [and] remind them there is an election. [. . .] Then we can get their email, [and] remind them on the day of, or a few days before.”
One of the components of the campaign, which began canvassing work in the spring, is pledge drives during which student volunteers approach students, ask them if they know about the upcoming federal election, and hopefully get them to pledge to vote. In addition, students can receive pamphlets courtesy of Elections Canada that explain how to register to vote, as well as email reminders closer to the election date.
Said Azevedo, “Students, especially ones at the time of the elections, during midterms time, get so focused in their own world, they don’t know there’s an election going on. They don’t know where to go.”
Leena Hasan, another one of the SFU student organizers, commented on the feedback from students whom they approached for their first drive of this semester, which was held during the 50th Anniversary Kickoff event on September 9 at the Burnaby Campus.
“Most people seemed like they were interested in voting and everyone that I talked to knew that there was a federal election coming up,” said Hasan. “I think that is a good sign that this is becoming a more prominent issue that people are paying attention to.”
She elaborated, “We told them about the benefits of signing the pledge, not just saying that you’re going to vote, but to be able to provide resources on how to register, and where the parties stand on youth issues so that it would also give them something useful.”
According to Hasan, many students (herself included) are concerned about issues such as Bill C-51 and the erosion of civil liberties in the current government. Said Hasan, “There’s definitely a lot of people who aren’t happy with current government for a lot of different reasons.”
Hasan was motivated by her own dissatisfaction with the government to get involved. “I voted in the last election and was really disappointed with the results and it felt like people were not really engaged with Canadian politics and they didn’t really realize what the consequences would be,” she said.
“But now that we’ve actually seen them and experienced what it’s like to have a Harper government, I think people are starting to wake up and pay attention to democracy being affected and falling apart.”
In the coming weeks before the election, the organizers hope to do more pledge drives, run a poster campaign, and hold a debate on October 1 for all the candidates running for the seat in SFU Burnaby’s riding, save for the Conservative candidate who declined to attend.
Said Azevedo, “The idea is that youth can be game changers in this election.”
