Poll results collected on Ryerson campus show that 32.5 per cent of students would most likely vote for the Liberal Party in the upcoming provincial elections
by Andrea Josic
Poll results collected by second-year journalism students on Ryerson campus showed that students tend to vote for the Liberal Party in provincial elections.
In a poll that asked students which party they were most likely to vote for in the upcoming Ontario provincial elections, 32.5 per cent said that would vote for the Liberal Party.
Vice-President of the Politics and Governance Student Association (POGSA) at Ryerson Zagros Habibi said the results did not surprise him. Habibi feels students choose Ryerson based on their personal political opinions.
“I think Ryerson does a lot of advocation,” said Habibi. “For example we have our Social Justice Week which focuses on social justice issues across the country. When high school students look for schools, they tend to choose schools that have the same ideology. I think this is why a lot of Ryerson students are left-leaning.”
Habibi also believes most people do not educate themselves enough before voting.
“I think the media skews what the Conservative and Liberal parties really stand for,” said Habibi, referencing the alt-right and alt-left. “Especially for people that aren’t familiar with politics, it plays a huge role in how and if people vote. If media coverage only shows that people might not even want to vote.”
Vice-President of Finance at POGSA student Jason Burke believes that the Liberal Party is appealing for university students in particular.
“I would say the Liberal Party makes a lot of promises to university students,” said Burke. “Unfortunately, I think the majority of the population is not civically engaged so when they hear parties say ‘We’ll fix your problems and make life great’ then it’s appealing.”
23.5 per cent of students said they were undecided, 19.4 per cent would vote for the New Democratic Party, 14.5 per cent would vote for the Progressive Conservative Party, 5.1 per cent said they were unlikely to vote for anyone, 3.7 per cent would vote for the Green Party, 1.2 per cent would vote other and 0.2 per cent would vote for the Trillium Party.
This poll was conducted by Ryerson School of Journalism students. They surveyed 567 full-time students at Ryerson University between Oct. 6 to Oct. 19.
The poll carries a margin of error of plus minus four percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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