While they’re not legally allowed to vote, Pickering College senior students hosted a town hall Thursday to put some of their most pressing concerns to candidates of the four main federal parties who seek to represent the Newmarket-Aurora riding in Ottawa.
The students, along with other schools in the local riding and across Canada, will mark their ballots in a student vote set to take place Thursday, Oct. 17.
The Student Vote is a learning program that gives students the chance to experience the voting process firsthand and practice the habits of active and informed citizenship. The results will be published on its website soon after the vote.
In welcoming guests and fellow students, Grade 10 student and MC Michaela Morra, said “by engaging in this election, and learning about our civic responsibility to vote, young people know that they have an important influence on how we are governed”.
“Being critically informed about elections and political decision-making is an important part of being a global citizen,” Morra said. “This town hall gives us an opportunity to hear the views of some of the candidates running for the federal seat in the riding of Newmarket-Aurora. I hope everyone enjoys this town hall and becomes informed about the issues you selected in our school-wide survey”.
The candidates, which included Conservative Lois Brown, the Green Party’s Walter Bauer, New Democrat Yvonne Kelly, and Liberal Tony Van Bynen, each made a two-and-a-half minute introduction of themselves to the packed house, and explained what their party stands for and what sets them apart from the others.
Bauer was first up to the podium and spoke about 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg and the climate strike that saw seven million people around the world participate last Friday, including one million in Canada.
“Our generation has generated a climate change crisis, which the other parties are reluctant to take seriously,” Bauer said. “In the 1970s, I was about your age. I didn’t vote, and had no interest in politics. I didn’t understand, didn’t care, and didn’t trust. I’m now running because I’m scared of the science and the effects of climate change.”
“The Conservatives and Greens are concerned about the growing national debt, the NDP and the Greens are concerned about growing inequality, education and health care. Where the Greens differ is in our plans to tackle climate change. The Green Party realizes we won’t have any economy without a healthy planet, and we’re the only party with a plan to meet targets set out in the Paris Accord.”
Brown, too, sounded the alarm that “this election is one of the most important elections that Canada has ever faced”, but for different reasons.
“We are at a crossroads, and the crossroads is, do we continue down the path of great debt and shrinking opportunities for the future or do we look to preparing our country for the wealth of talent that’s in this room, and prepare you for the future, because you are the future of Canada,” Brown said.
“I would sum up the priorities of the Conservative Party in two words: family and future,” she told the students. “Family, because everything that we are going to do in our campaign is to make life more affordable. That means putting money back in the pockets of your parents to assist you with your plans for your future.”
The NDP’s Kelly agreed that the country was in a “unique time”, and voters have big decisions to make about the direction in which Canada will go.
“You will be the generation that will be most impacted by all decisions made in the next four years by the government that’s elected,” Kelly said. “Many of the NDP’s priorities have been the same for some time now, such as universal child care, affordable housing, and expanded health care that includes free prescription medications, dental care and improved access to essential mental health services.”
Van Bynen said that from a young age, he learned the importance of community after his family’s farmhouse burned down and neighbours rallied to help take care of his siblings until a new home was found.
“It takes a village to raise up those who need it the most and to ensure that the promise of this country is not limited to the chosen few,” Van Bynen said. “That’s always been the Canda that I know and that is why I’m running for the federal Liberal Party.”
“Good policy invests in those who need it and provides our community with the environment that it needs to grow,” he said. “You may not be able to vote today, but you’re still members of our community and it’s important for you that Newmarket-Aurora continues to thrive.”
It was the student’s turn next to take to the microphone and ask questions about the issues that are top of mind for them, including taxation, support for universities and research, Canada’s gun laws and climate change.
The selection of questions clearly highlighted the different approaches each federal party would take, as well as the candidates' own views on the subject.
For example, Grade 10 student Georgia Saarimaki asked: “What do you think the tax rate should be for people with a lower income and for people with a higher income?”
Here are the candidates’ answers, edited for clarity and space.
NDP’s Yvonne Kelly: “We wouldn’t remove the carbon tax because we feel that helps to offset the cost of carbon, however, for those at the highest tax bracket, like corporations, who now pay 15 per cent of their income on taxes, we would need to raise that. That’s the bracket we need to make sure we’re collecting taxes on, the top one per cent of Canadians, who have lots of mechanisms through our tax code that allow them to evade paying taxes. We will impose a one per cent wealth tax on the super wealthy that will allow us to pay for a lot of programs, like pharmacare.”
Green Party’s Walter Bauer: “The Green Party agrees with the NDP’s position on taxes, but taxes are what pay for the roads you drive on, the innovation associated with the internet and GPS. None of that would exist without government. We would close tax loopholes, and tax companies like Netflix and Facebook that currently don’t pay any tax.”
Conservative Party’s Lois Brown: “That question has multiple prongs because we actually live in a society where we have chosen to have a progressive tax rate. People at the lower end of the income level don’t pay any tax at all. People at the higher end of the tax rate can pay up to 52 per cent of their income in taxes. One of the things Conservatives have always done is lower taxes for people who are in the most needy brackets. And we’re going to remove the carbon tax because that’s causing people in the lowest income brackets the most amount of money.”
Liberal Party’s Tony Van Bynen: “The tax system is a system of redistributing wealth and we’re committed to making sure the most vulnerable in our society get the support of those who can afford to do so the most. Don’t be fooled by the idea that the carbon tax is not a tax, it is a price on pollution. And some people seem to forget to tell you that that money is refunded back to you, and that refund offsets what most of the vulnerable families are spending.”
Student Braedon Joanisse, who was not present but whose question was read by the MC, asked: What do you think about the current gun laws in Canada and do you think anything should be done about them? If so, what types of new laws would you and your party implement in order to stop gun-related crime?
Van Bynen said: “I firmly believe that there’s no place in this community for anyone to have a handgun other than a police officer of a security guard. We should be banning handguns. In my view, if you have a handgun, you’re done.”
Bauer said: “The Green Party agrees with that view. In the U.S., 30 states have open carry rules, where you can carry a gun around. There’s also 38 states that allow people to shoot others if they trespass on their property. We want to ban handguns and assault rifles. There’s a mass murder everyday in the U.S., and we want to avoid all those situations.”
Brown said: “Legally owned handguns are not the problem, there are many people in Canada who have legally owned guns who are shooters, and go to places like the Sharon gun club, who carry their guns appropriately. It is the gangs that we’re seeing in Toronto, particularly, and in other urban centres. We need to stop illegal guns coming across our borders. We need to stop the manufacturing of illegal guns. And we need real law taking place in our judicial system and give them the tools that they need to solve the problems at the judicial level.”
Kelly said: “I agree with Tony (Van Bynen), we need to ban handguns. There are people who are responsible, but when research and statistics tell us that when we reduce the number of handguns, the number of deaths by handgun incidents goes down. We also need to stop illegal guns coming across the border. In communities where people are feeling the most helpless, they can become victims to gangs and other criminal activity. We want to provide more options, and hope.”
Grade 12 student Alan Mao asked: How will you and your party support universities and research?
Bauer said: “I’m not sure you’re aware but the Conservative government here in Ontario have been cutting funding to education, that is short-term thinking. We need a long term plan to make sure that we have higher education. The Green Party would make college and university tuition free, it would cancel the student debt. When my sons graduated, they had considerable student debt and it took a number of years to repay. That would be cancelled. With those two programs, it’s going to encourage people of your age to attain a higher education and that will be good for the country in the long run.”
Brown said: “Secondary school education is so important for our future, and you are the young people who are the future of Canada. So, I encourage you to be ambitious about those things. We’re going to start really early with helping parents to save for kids’ future education by putting more into RESPs because that’s something that parents can do right from the beginning. We’ve invested in research projects that have global impact and we will continue to do those things.”
Kelly said: “We are going to reduce student debt and move toward including post-secondary as part of the whole public education system so people can go to school free. As far as research and innovation, Canada has lagged behind because we haven’t had investments at the federal level to help our universities. A lot of colleges and universities are actually running more like businesses because they can’t afford to invest in the types of research they want. We have to make those investments. You guys will be the ones to figure out how we’re going to get beyond the next 10 years.”
Van Bynen said: “There’s a lot of bright minds in our country but everybody needs to be given an equal opportunity. We’ve increased the student loans, and grants to make higher education available for more people. Don’t be fooled by the idea that increasing an RESP program is helping everybody because it’s not. There are so many families here that simply can’t afford to put money away into an RESP. I’m all for providing an equal opportunity for all of the bright minds in our community.”
