Prince George, B.C. – “Fantastic.”

Garth Frizzell

That’s how Prince George city councillor and Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) director Garth Frizzell describes today’s FCM sponsored federal election TweetChat.

“We had a tremendous amount of involvement. The questions covered a really wide range of issues that were relevant to youth,” he says. “We had a lot of discussion on everything from post-secondary education to transit and to housing and how youth can have more of a say in municipal politics.”

Frizzell adds the discussion veered into this fall’s election and was so popular that it trended right behind World Photography Day.

What kind of implications could this have on October’s vote?

“I’m sure there was a lot of recognition by the federal parties that this was going on,” he says.
“The fact students are using a digital medium to talk about the issues that matter to them and doing it in a very public manner means candidates can look in and see what the issues are.”

So what’s next? “There’s going to be analysis done on what kind of consistent issues came up,” says Frizzell. “In September at the board meeting in Fredericton we’ll get some feedback on it but almost immediately it will help inform the FCM Election Readiness Platform.”