The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) and the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) have joined other student groups to take part in the provincial Take it Over Campaign, which urges students between the ages of 18 and 24 to pledge to vote in the upcoming provincial election on October 24.
BCFS chairperson Tanysha Klassen says that the BCFS got involved in this campaign over the summer because there was talk back then about the election being called.
“We were thinking about all the different ways that we can try and get this campaign through, even though social media’s so saturated with every organization trying to do the same thing,” she says.
The BCFS decided to “really work with the feelings that young people have had within the last year,” says Klassen.
Some of the issues students have on their minds, says Klassen, are for example, environmental issues, racial justice, housing affordability, and post-secondary education concerns.
“We started thinking of really interesting things we could do… things like guerilla postering in cities,” says Klassen. “I know folks at the Camosun College Student Society [CCSS] are going to be doing postering around the city; we’ve been doing things like that.”
CCSS external executive Quinn Cunningham says that the CCSS has been partnering with the University of Victoria Students’ Society—which is also involved in the campaign—with the guerilla postering.
“This vote is ours,” Cunningham says. “By participating in this process, we’re letting politicians know that students are a group of constituents that they need to listen to, that we need supports now more than ever with COVID. It’s really important that whoever gets elected in the riding understands that.”
Klassen says getting heard on social media can be a challenge. To help with this, the BCFS is using the services of Cameo, which, for a cost, gets celebrities to record custom videos for organizations to get their messages across. (Depending on the celebrity, rates can be anywhere from $50 to $1,427, for the site’s most expensive celebrity, Floyd Mayweather.)
“No idea too crazy,” says Klassen.
Klassen says that the idea of younger people not voting is absolutely false.
“In the last BC election, voter turnout between people aged 18 to 24 increased eight percent,” she says. “They actually ended up surpassing the number of voters aged 25 to 44… We’re seeing young people more and more raising their voices on certain issues, so as long as politicians are talking about those issues, young people are going to get out to vote.”
Cunningham says it’s going to be a tough election, given the challenges that COVID-19 has brought with it, along with the usual struggle of having student voices heard.
“Take it over,” says Cunningham. “Let’s do this, students.”
See takeitover.ca for more information.