Hi, and welcome back to my blog. Today, I’ll be discussing my latest project in PLP, “Who cares, and why bother?”. 

In this project, we discussed the political system in Canada and why it’s important to know about politics. In other words, we answered the question “Who cares about politics and why bother?”. 

Throughout this project, I learned a lot of new things about the government. As someone who’s interested in politics and the goings-on of the world, I was a little disappointed how little I knew about how our country’s government functions.

Our main goal was to present something to an audience that demonstrates why it’s important to understand politics and why the audience should care about it. In my group, we chose to demonstrate that with a semi-interactive presentation.

First, we took the audience through some of the main social issues affecting Canadians today. The issues we chose to address were the cost of living, the environment, healthcare, and post-secondary education. After discussing the issues and how they are affecting Canadians, we introduced four different political parties. The parties were based off of prominent political parties in Canada, but we didn’t disclose which was which until later. 

Instead of referring to each party as the real party it was representing, we gave each party a letter, having parties A through to D. We introduced the parties to the audience and explained what each party promised to do to address the issues we went over at the start. We took the audience through the parties commitments and statements regarding the issues we were looking at, and once we felt the audience understood what each party wanted, we had them vote for which party they felt would be best suited for leadership given their promises and commitments toward each issue. Then, once everyone had voted, we revealed that party A was the Liberal Party, party B was Conservative, Party C was the Green Party, and party D was NDP. NDP/Party D ended up getting the most votes out of the four.

Apart from figuring out how we could demonstrate to others why they should care to learn about politics, I learned a lot myself throughout this project. The deeper understanding of the way the Canadian government functions that I gained through this project is something that I can already envision being some important knowledge later on in life. This project also made me realize how important it was that I vote. As someone who doesn’t really align with any of the parties on the ballot enough to want to vote for one, I was previously on the fence about wether or not I should even bother casting a ballot. However, this project has helped me realize that it’s important that my voice be heard, even if that’s just casting a vote in favour of a party that I feel would better represent my needs and interests.

In a lot of previous projects I’ve done, I’ve felt reluctant towards learning because I simply didn’t see the knowledge as ever being useful, but learning about how my government functions and how I can have my voice be heard and my interests represented is something that is very important.

The way I’m now seeing voting is more of the “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” mindset. Even if I don’t agree fully with any of the parties that would realistically get in, it’s important that I vote so that I can be a part of keeping an even worse party out of power.

This also makes me think about other ways I can make my voice heard by the government and advocate for myself and my interests.

Thank you for reading.

Dylan