POLITICAL DISCUSSION
How do you take a subject like politics and make it accessible to teenagers? This was the question that was put forward to Cheetah’s For Change mere weeks before the 2021 Canadian federal elections. It is always our goal to spread awareness on current issues, but with this year’s elections being snap elections, we were in for a challenge getting something out in an appropriate amount of time. The safe thing to do in this scenario would be to put together something small like an informational video, but the club however had different ideas. With a very “go big or go home” mentality, we collectively decided on hosting a political debate for the Halifax West candidates, which meant that we had a lot of work to do and just about two weeks to do it.
Two big things needed to be figured out first before we could get started on organizing the event. Firstly we needed an effective format that would be informative for the students while also not being too restrictive on the politicians. We came to the conclusion that a traditional debate would focus too much on attacking one another and not sharing the platforms of each respective party. This is why we did a Q&A style discussion where each party member would receive two minutes to answer the given question with no rebuttals. The next, and most difficult part, was finding our speakers. Thankfully most of the parties we reached out to saw the value in speaking to such a young and impressionable audience, and others, not so much. It was a balancing act trying to juggle egos, schedules, and parties that were in, out, in, out… However, we managed to secure the Libral Party, The NDP, and the Green party.
The day of our political discussion would turn out to be a hectic one. We needed absolutely everyone in the club to help with putting all of the pieces together. We needed people to greet the politicians at the door and lead them to the stage, set up the podiums, lighting, and microphones, we needed people to emcee, ask questions, keep time, and even moderate when necessary. Even though it was a big task, the pay off at the end was huge! The venue was completely filled with students, the politicians put on a great discussion, and everything went according to plan. There was the occasional jab at one another during the discussions but this kept the students very engaged throughout the entire debate. We are confident as a whole that many of the spectators left that day having learned something new which is all that we could ask for. This was a great experience for everyone involved and hopefully it will be a sign of things to come for the Cheetahs for Change in the future.
