Shubir Shaikh, 24-year-old Bow Valley High alumni and Cochranite, was elected President of the Young Liberals of Canada in Alberta (YLCA) leader Aug. 21.
A fourth year University of Calgary (U of C) student of International Development Studies, Shaikh is also President of the U of C Liberals and is excited to expand the YLCA brand, engage youth inclusively and help invoke passion among youth that their voices can make a difference.
The Eagle caught up with Shaikh to get a better idea on how he views his future with the YLCA and what meaningful changes he hopes to make.
What is your role with the Young Liberals of Canada as the newly YLCA President (what does your role entail as far as responsibilities/mission/engagement on a provincial and federal level?
My role is to ensure the Young Liberals of Canada - Alberta (YLCA) executives organize and executes events, engage with the youth, and translate our collective opinions into policy-proposals for the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC). I believe that it is important the voices of young people from Alberta make it to the LPC. It is better to be represented in the party from Alberta, than not be represented in Ottawa at all, that is why I am focused on advocating for youth in Alberta to the LPC.
Who are the YLCA and how is your organization currently transforming? (how does the organization actively operate)
YLCA members are post-secondary students, high school students and full-time and part-time workers that represent a progressive youth voice that is able to advocate to the Young Liberals of Canada and the Liberal Party of Canada. The YLCA is in its inaugural year, prior to YLCA, it was known as Alberta Young Liberals that represented both the federal and provincial Liberal Parties, however, under YLCA, we are affiliated with only the federal. We are undergoing significant changes on our social media sites to accommodate these changes. From these changes, we plan to grow the YLCA brand to one of the biggest respectively in Canada through social media and by hosting events to the youth.
What are the highlights for you in the work that lies ahead? (where would you like to administer or influence the most change?)
The YLCA plans to achieve our goal to connect and engage with youth, by hosting non-partisan events that introduce political topics that are on the minds of youth. Our first event topic will be Should We Lower the Voting Age to 17/16? By hosting these events, we are not seeking to push an agenda, rather, to hear both sides of the argument through discussions and informative settings. We also plan to hold policy workshops, grassroots campaigning workshops, monthly social nights for the youth across Alberta, and our bi-weekly meetings that are open to the public. We plan to have a substantive social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and our future website. On these platforms, we will have polls, articles, blogs, vlogs and upcoming events. We need to connect with the youth this direct way because there's a lot of political apathy amongst youth. Many young people feel powerless about decisions that are made that affect them. But where they may feel they really don't have a say is that the system is very paternalistic and their futures are being decided for them by a previous generation that doesn't understand the changing political climate. Issues like youth employment, or environment or indigenous matters. Many young people become apolitical because they don't think anyone will listen to them.
The major problem is political apathy amongst youths who feel disenfranchised by the system.
But we have to realize that we as the next generation have to become more conscious about our development as those who, in 10 to 20 years, have to step into these positions of policy and decision-making and be ready to make important decisions with some amount of awareness, some amount of knowledge, and, perhaps most importantly, some amount of confidence. We have to start now to try to mobilize people for a time in the future when we will have to rely on ourselves to take Canada into the future.
What are the greatest challenges that lie ahead for you?
Since the YLC-A is in its inaugural year. We will be looking forward to creating our footprint in Calgary, Edmonton and other cities across Alberta. The YLC has a long record of innovative policies from the youth that ended up in the federal policies for the Liberal Party including endangered species protection, same sex marriage rights, and fighting for legalization of marijuana. The YLC is the largest political youth organization in Canada, and has proud history of innovative policy work, therefore, I am confident the YLC-A voices will be heard in Ottawa.
How do you seek to engage with other youth & non-youth groups who do not identify as liberals?
One of our main goals as YLCA is to be inclusive to all youths, regardless of their political stripes, let’s not forget that Stephen Harper got his start in politics as a Young Liberal. We plan to host events that are informative to all youth and non-youth on topics that matter to Albertans. From these events, we will understand people’s opinion on specific topics. We plan to use their feedback and implement their ideas in to our policy proposals that we will push forward to Ottawa. The biggest concern Albertan youths have is the high unemployment rate. The high unemployment rate is related to getting Alberta’s natural resources to the market. Under the previous government, with almost 10 years of governance, there has absolutely been no progress in building pipelines. Although they did try hard, but approached it in the wrong manner without consulting youth groups, indigenous peoples, and fellow-Canadians from other provinces. The previous government approached this in an extreme manner that was perceived as unsafe and unethical not just to other free-trade bloc like EU, but also within Canada. It’s time to approach this issue differently, more inclusively, with all Canadians in mind. Some of the other issues amongst the youth are environment, first nations water access, surveillance, electoral reform, and international efforts.
How do you feel PM Justin Trudeau acts as the key figure to the youth party?
PM Justin Trudeau has recently renewed the Canada Summer Jobs program that will offer nearly 70,000 jobs to students until 2018. As the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth, PM Trudeau also recently created the Prime Minister’s Youth Council which will seek to be more inclusive to the youth. Local Members of Parliament Darshan Kang and Minister Kent Hehr also plan to create their own youth councils soon. With new positions opening up to young people, I believe that P.M. Trudeau and MPs are helping move the youth concerns forward.
