The legal voting age in Canada is 18 years old, but this is not necessarily the age that Canadians should start getting involved in politics. For a group of Canadian teenagers, becoming immersed in politics should start long before 18 years old as it might take years to truly understand issues surrounding politics and what ideals to support.
In May 2020, the Canadian Youth Letters Project (CYLP) was started, a project created to engage youth in Canadian politics and create an open conduit with our governments to influence societal change starting with implemented policies, bills, and legislation.
The founder, teenager Danica, first got the idea from a constituency manager who mentioned how important it was for people to tell the government what they need, and emphasized writing letters. However, long before this, Danica had already observed a great need for Canadian youth to have their voices heard in Canadian politics, so she got a group of friends together with the intent of writing letters to the Canadian Government, and it ended up becoming the CYLP that continued to grow into what it is now.
In the past few months, CYLP has been able to collaborate with accounts that have similar interests and objectives. This experience helps them not only learn from them and their experiences, but to help us better educate the general youth demographic. They have been collaborating on various mediums including posts, Instagram videos, TikToks, podcasts, webinars, and more.
In particular, CYLP has had the opportunity to meet with several government officials who have been willing to hear their mission. They have been able to provide several contacts for CYLP to write letters to in order to ‘press’ them on current issues affecting youth.
Looking forward, CYLP has high hopes to establish ourselves all over Canada and be able to speak with and for all minorities to effectively help speak for all youth. Furthermore, they plan to have conduits with the Canadian government in hope that they will pay attention to CYLP’s impactful letters and opinions.
Although a majority of CYLP members are still legally “children,” CYLP urges youth not to feel helpless or “too young” to truly make an impact. CYLP empowers youth in Canada to not be restricted by the boundaries society has placed for them and aims to prepare them to become impactful adults and enact great change in the political scope.
Powerful sentiment from CYLP:
“We are the next generation and we have to live with the outcome of every single decision that is made by our government officials right now, good or bad. We see the injustices that continue to be ignored and we feel the need to change them. We will educate youth as future voters so they are well informed, as we have noticed that many voters are not. We see the change that Canada needs and we see the potential that Canada can be and we are passionate about fighting for a better country for all Canadians.”
Advice for others wanting to start their own organization based on a passion?
“It sounds cheesy but really don’t give up. We never thought our organization would be where it is now. It has taken a lot of hard work to get here and it has taken a lot of perseverance. It’s easy to give up when things are hard, but when you give up on yourself, your passion, or your organization, you give up on the possibility of ever instigating the change that you want to see. It really comes down to how passionate you are about what you want to do and if you need people to talk to about making your passion a reality and persevering through the hard times, we’re around.”
Featured Video: Canada Youth Letters Project discusses their mission