Results of a student vote mirrored recent general election results in the North Island-Powell River riding. Forty-five schools in the riding were involved, including Brooks Secondary School.
During Student Vote Canada 2025, held concurrently with the federal election on Monday, more than 930,000 students at 6,272 elementary and high schools across the country marked unofficial voting cards.
Of the 600 ballots requested for Brooks students, 352 were cast. Conservative Party of Canada candidate Aaron Gunn received the most with 136 votes, which was 26 more than the NDP's Tanille Johnston (110). Liberal Party of Canada's Jennifer Lash received 56 votes, followed by Paul Macknight of People's Party of Canada with 28, independent candidate Glen Staples with 17, and the Green Party's Jessica Wegg (five), who was the only candidate in the Brooks vote to finish in a different spot than in the riding's student and general election results, where she finished fourth.
Overall in the riding, students gave Gunn 1,835 votes, 1,392 were cast for Johnston, 973 went to Lash, followed by Wegg (612), Macknight (199) and Staples (127). The general election results for North Island-Powell River were: Gunn, 31,356 (Elected); Johnston, 26,357; Lash, 21,045; Wegg, 1,558; Macknight, 341; and Staples, 156.
Nationally, student choices were notably different than in the general election. A Conservative minority government was elected with 165 seats and 36.4 per cent of the popular vote – compared to the adult result of a Liberal minority with 169 seats and 43.7 per cent of the popular vote and 143 seats for the conservatives. Student votes resulted in 18 seats to the Bloc Québécois 13 to the NDP and two to the Green Party.
For young electors across the country, the vote was much more spread out among candidates than concentrated on certain political parties. That’s because younger people tend to vote with their hearts rather than strategically, said Dana Cotnareanu, spokesperson for Student Vote.
“Even though the Conservatives have [the most] seats in the student vote, they didn’t get that much of the popular vote,” she said. “I feel like the students really voted for the parties that they wanted to see in power. And not necessarily voted against someone, they voted for someone.”
Cotnareanu said that conservative politics could be trending up among younger people, or other factors could be at play.
“In BC, for example, a lot of the votes went to Green and NDP. It wasn’t…as Liberal as it might have been for the adults,” she said. “In this situation, obviously it might have been easier for the Conservative Party to slide into power, because the votes were more fragmented than they were for the adults.”
While this year’s student vote turnout was a little shy of a record 1.2 million ballots cast in 2019, it’s still impressive considering the shorter timeline to prepare for the snap election.
“Hats off to teachers for an incredible effort that they put in,” said Cotnareanu.
Results from all schools in the North Island-Powell River riding are available here.
~with files from Nick Laba/North Shore News
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