Students Attend Election Viewing Party
FREDERICTON — Students at St. Thomas University were glued to their seats on election night after the school’s Students’ Union planned a viewing party at the lounge in Sir James Dunn Hall.
Over the past month, the St. Thomas University Students’ Union has encouraged students to vote in the upcoming fall federal election. The school was actively involved in the Canadian Alliance of Student Association’s ‘Get Out The Vote’ Campaign. According to its website, 35,353 students across the country had pledged to vote this year. Ailish MacKenzie-Foley, STUSU’s vice-president of education, said STU was the second university across the country to come up with the most pledges.
This year, voters aged 38 and under made up a vast majority of the voting population in this year’s election, according to an article from the Toronto Star.
Jason O’Hearn, a first-year student at St. Thomas, stressed how necessary it is for students to get involved with politics and vote.
“I find it’s very important for students to get their voice heard, especially on the federal scale,” said O’Hearn. “As we’ve seen in the past 40 days … each leader wants to bring student voices forward and bring more support for university students across the nation.”
Approximately 35 students attended the late-night event. Throughout the night, students kept track of results for their electoral ridings on laptops and phones.
In the Fredericton riding, Jenica Atwin was elected as the first Green Party Member of Parliament east of British Columbia. Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau was re-elected as prime minister under a minority government, with Andrew Sheer’s Conservative Party winning the popular vote.
O’Hearn said he was very proud to hear about Atwin’s historic victory.
“I knew she was gonna win [when] I saw her at the debate just from the way she presented herself,” he said.
International students make up a large part of the STU’s student population. Many of them also attended the viewing party, even though they aren’t eligible to vote or get involved with Canadian politics.
Manvi Walter, an international student from Rajasthan, India, said she enjoys watching results from the sidelines, even though she wasn’t able to vote in the federal election.
“We also have that kind of a [democratic] system and … it’s good to see how interesting the votes are here too,” said Walter. “I get to learn about politics and how the systems work here.”
Walter said she doesn’t know much about Canadian politics as a whole, but she does understand what a minority government will mean for the country.
“[Trudeau] will probably have to take opinions from other parties involved since he didn’t get a majority,” said Walter.
Trudeau’s new cabinet will be sworn into office on Nov. 20.
