By Medicine Hat News on April 20, 2019.
While most high school students are not quite of voting age yet, schools across the city gave them a chance to vote for their provincial party of choice on the day of election.
If the student votes had counted, the United Conservative party would have had 49 seats, the NDP would have had 35 seats and the Alberta Party would have grabbed three seats.
Alex McMorran is in Grade 10 at Crescent Heights High School and says the UCP was his party of choice.
“The UCP supports small business owners and I think that’s really important in our economy right now,” he said. “I think education was one of the biggest issues surrounding the election and there’s been a lot of talk about it after the fact now.”
Ayat Mohammed is a Grade 12 student at Hat High and she says the NDP had the best platform in her eyes.
“Through my research the NDP looked the best to me,” she said. “I felt like the NDP was a good middle ground this year and I read (Rachel Notley’s) platform and it looked pretty good to me.
“The education part was really important to me as a student and her economic plan looked good to me as well.”
Aidan Vermette, who also goes to Crescent Heights, says he voted with a similar line of thinking compared to McMorran.
“I voted for the UCP,” he said. “I feel like the NDP focused too much on the youth and not really on Alberta as a whole, and that might be why our economy is where it’s at right now.
“I feel like the UCP will focus on Alberta as a whole and really on bringing our economy back to where it needs to be.”
Autumn McFetridge, another Grade 12 Hat High student, says she found this year’s election to be quite interesting.
“My vote was one that was looking towards the future,” she said. “For me, I was concerned about economics because pretty soon I’ll be paying taxes and paying to go to school, so I need the future economy to be strong and not setup poorly.”