Bryan Laprise
If unfamiliar with Galt's EH program, it is an enriched English and history program offered to levels 3 through 5. Every year, the students have an end-of-year project, which is the biggest differentiation of EH from other classes at Galt. In level 3, students are tasked with planning and teaching a complete 70-minute class. In secondary 5, it's an epic rap battle of history. In level 4, it's recreating the Canadian House of Commons through "Model Parliament".
On March 31st, Galt's 32 secondary 4 EH students started their Model Parliament sessions, a project that has been 7 months in the making. Each student was assigned or voted into the role of an actual MP from the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. They were divided into the five political parties currently in the House of Commons; the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party.
Model Parliament students from various parties.
For a few months now, the Liberals have been working on writing bills for 5 ministries chosen by their teachers. Each ministry has its minister and a "backbencher" as the EH students like to call it. In other words, the parliamentary secretary to the minister. This year, the ministries chosen were Environment and Climate Change, Global Affairs, Agriculture and Agri-Food, Crown-Indigenous Relations, and Employment and Social Development. They have come up with bills ranging from transitioning from lithium-ion car batteries to sodium-ion batteries to building schools in Cameroon.
Leaders of the parties. Left to right: Bryan Laprise, Cayden Costello, Jorgia Bennett, Evelyne Lefebvre, Logan Riley
Student Evelyne Lefebvre had the role of our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. She talked about how Model Parliament was a way to enhance your communication and professionalism skills. "Everything was a group effort. Even through our differences of opinions we still were able to find middle grounds to help support and enrich our work. Writing for Question Period was tons of research and giving each other the ressources to have strong answers. The bill creation process was very very tedious. There was frustration, but there was joy when we were able to have our bills passed. We were able to support our ideas and stand by them even though the opposition tried to rip it apart." As for Annabelle Roy, Galt's acting Chrystia Freeland, she said her party "struggled with the need for high quality content at a very quick pace, as well as the workload. For example, the ministry being questioned on their bill next session wouldn’t have time to help with the articles."
Meanwhile, the opposition parties were busy doing research of their own, trying to understand the topics the Liberals chose, and trying to find ideas for amendments to make the bills better. Logan Riley portrayed the role of Pierre Poilievre, the Official Leader of the Opposition. He said he found the hardest thing about the project and being the leader of his party was "to predict what the other parties would respond to our questions with. Given we did so much attacking, we had to be doubly prepared to poke holes in their rebuttals. It was most important to me that our party not only was ready to ask questions, but we were ready to back them up with concrete facts and evidence. If at any point someone from another party took a shot at us, I wanted to make sure that we seemed prepared and we were prepared." Abigayle Tanguay, Galt's Conservative deputy leader, said her biggest struggle was trying to motivate her party to ensure they were as passionate as they could be towards the project.
Jorgia Bennett, who portrayed Yves-François Blanchet, said, "I think the hardest part was putting our own views aside and really taking on the role of our party. At the beginning of Parliament, I found it hard to communicate with all my party critics and make sure everything that needed to be said would be said. Overall it turned out very nicely, I think the Bloc Québécois as a party worked very well together." Emma Picard, the deputy leader of the Bloc Québécois in the project, said her biggest source of stress was the moment when she was about to speak during sessions, but once she started talking, the adrenaline would kick in and she would start to have fun.
Galt's leader of the NDP, Cayden Costello said, "It was hardest to really make a difference in voting as the NDP has a small number of seats, so we needed to make alliances depending on different bills. As the leader, I had to make sure everyone’s ideologies fit with every decision we made and getting along with other opposition parties!" Haley Giguère, the deputy leader of the NDP found the hardest part of being in an opposition party was to "ensure that your parties' views and values are seen in all the bills in the beginning and while creating amendments."
I portrayed Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party of Canada. The thing I found the trickiest was to ensure we got all our work done, and done on time. Considering we were three people, but had to do the same amount of work as the Conservatives with 9, it was hard to manage getting everything done. As for Mena Abd El Rahman, the Greens' deputy leader, what she found the hardest to do was "debating the amendments because that is when you decided whether or not you’d vote for the bill and always making sure you backbenched the leader and making sure you incorporated your party’s values."
English teacher Ms. Mckinven says, "I think my favourite part is seeing the discomfort in students when the project is first introduced and when they work on it, and at the end seeing their pride when they're finished." History teacher Ms. Comeau stated her favourite part was "watching the evolution of the process to the point where the students start critically analysing Parliament." She says she likes the whole process, from beginning to end and seeing student growth.
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