On November 30, 2018, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Stéphane Perrault, went back to high school. He visited a grade 10 history class in Toronto, at East York Collegiate Institute. With the help of teacher Christina Ganev, the class did the Elections Canada resource Voting Rights through Time. Through examining and discussing the historical case studies in the lesson, they created their own timelines with attitude to explore themes of inclusion and exclusion in the history of federal voting rights.
Later that day, 200 students gathered in the school library for a Q&A with the Chief Electoral Officer. They filled the session with great questions, ranging from topics like the voting age, to mandatory voting, to what it’s like being the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. Some of the students will be old enough to vote in the next federal election, so it was a great opportunity for them to get up close and personal with our electoral system.
