iVote-jeVote Project
This initiative was developed and executed from 2014 to 2017 for the University of Ottawa. IFSD principals worked with motivated undergraduate students to design and execute made-for-TV events.
While Parliament Hill is only a few blocks from campus to students and political leaders alike, it can feel hundreds of kilometres away. The purpose of the initiative was to bring political leaders to the campus to interact with students and discuss and debate relevant issues through public events and smaller discussion-focused ones. The objective was to motivate and encourage young adults to engage in Canada’s public life but on their terms.
To deliver this initiative, IFSD leveraged longstanding relationships with political leaders across party lines, recruited a motivated team of students and young alumni and engaged with undergraduate students across the university. Throughout the project, the team needed to create a safe multi-partisan space to generate and deliver robust, balanced and informed perspectives across a range of policy issues important to young voters.
Each student-led iVote-jeVote event attracted hundreds of attendees who came to hear from premiers and the prime minister, parliamentarians of all political stripes and prominent civil society leaders such as Dr. David Suzuki.