By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

On March 19, as talk of a federal election buzzed in the air, about 300 English-speaking teens and young adults from around the province, including many first-time voters, gathered at the Coeur des Sciences at Université du Québec à Montréal, for the annual Youth Forum organized by Montreal-based civic participation organization Youth 4 Youth (Y4Y).  The nonpartisan organization encourages English-speaking youth to get involved in their communities and get informed about wider social and political issues,

At the eighth annual Youth Forum, under the theme “Inform, Educate and Empower,” high school, CEGEP and university students and young professionals from around the province discussed anglophone out-migration, the democratic deficit and youth voter turnout, identity in Quebec and media consumption. Although most of the speakers and participants were from the greater Montreal area, participants came from Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, the Outaouais region and as far away as Sept-Iles.

Y4Y president Sufia Langevin, a recent Bishop’s University graduate, encouraged participants to “disagree without delegitimizing” other people’s arguments, and enjoy discovering points of view and realities they might not be familiar with.

Policy director Alex Pettem presented sobering data about youth outmigration, showing data that indicated that 14 per cent of Quebec anglophones, including 28 per cent of youth 18-24, were considering leaving the province in 2022. Younger people, people with more formal education and people in rural areas with fewer educational and employment opportunities were most likely to leave; among their reasons for considering a move, anglophones cited wanting to live in a more anglophone environment, discomfort with political dynamics in Quebec, work opportunities and family considerations, in that order, Pettem said. “It has long been a part of [Y4Y’s] message to stem outmigration, to encourage youth to stay in the province,” he said.

Panelists addressed their sense of belonging in Quebec and youth political participation – the merits of lobbying politicians, signing petitions, joining neighbourhood youth councils and lowering the voting age to 16. “Politics belongs to a group of people we don’t have contact with,” said Frishta, a student at CEGEP Champlain-St. Lambert, who didn’t give her full name. Petitions, she said, were a good concept, but “there’s often a gap between the effort you put in and the results you get.”

“It’s not apathy that’s the problem, it’s accessibility,” agreed Charles, a McGill student who also gave only his first name. “Every university should have a polling station.”

Félix Joly, a Secondary 5 student at the Séminaire de Sherbrooke, was one of the few participants from the Estrie region. Unlike most of the participants, he identifies as a francophone. He was eager to share his perspective as a francophone, a person from “the regions” and an advocate for student governance (he is a board member of a provincewide network of student council presidents), and to listen to what others had to say. “I found that on a vast number of points, [anglophone and francophone] participants were similar,” he said. “We have a lot of the same struggles, in terms of social media addiction and buying local. For us [francophones], immigration is a big language and cultural issue … it was nice hearing the other side of the coin; it made me think about my own point of view.” 

Although he and many of his peers will not turn 18 in time to vote in the April 28 election, they encouraged candidates and elected officials to take notice – and encouraged teens to take action on issues that mattered to them. “We don’t have the right to vote, so we’re not useful for anyone now, but we have to live with those policies,” he said. “We have to be like, ‘Hey, you’re working for us too.”