FALL RIVER: Students at Lockview High School in Fall River had their own say as part of a mock election in the lead-up to the Oct. 21 federal election—only their wasn’t part of Student Vote, like other schools in the areas were.
In the vote at LHS, the Green Party led by Elizabeth May won the right to form government, while Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would be the Official Opposition. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP had the third most seats; Andrew Scheer’s Conservative’s finished with the fourth most seats.
The People’s Party of Canada, under leader Maxime Bernier, did not win any seats.
Jason Balcom teaches Global Politics 12 this semester and had four out of five invited candidates come and speak to his class. The Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook candidates for the Liberals (Darrell Samson); Anthony Edmonds (Green Party); Sybil Hogg (People’s Party); and Matt Stickland (NDP) visited the class. Conservative Kevin Copley did not attend.
“We decided to take the mock election a step further and predict a government and opposition as well as popular vote,” said Balcom. “Each homeroom became a riding and each homeroom elected a candidate from the five parties running in this riding.”
He said the students had to do their own research.
“The homeroom teacher showed a slide on how voting worked and then the kids balloted,” he said.
Balcom explained the result was probably from the kids having heard about the Green Party and not knowing a whole lot about the other parties.
“It was good practice to demonstrate how a government was elected,” said Balcom.
