“Youth are our future.” “Youth are the leaders of tomorrow.” “Youth need a seat at the table.” You’ve heard these tired and absurdly obvious slogans before, each championing an active role for our youth in society. Usually these claims are simply lip service and don’t result in a tangible outlet for any action.
So what did Ottawa’s eager youth do when city councillors instituted an Ottawa Youth Cabinet five years ago, finally answering the call to provide a prominent and significant vehicle for action in the community? What happened when they finally got that seat at the table?
That seat wasn’t taken. Or, more correctly, about 21 seats were left unwarmed at the proverbial table.
The majority of the youth councillors who made up the cabinet showed their support by not showing up to meetings or resigning, turning the cabinet into the youngest white elephant the city has seen in some time.
Sometimes the elephant left solid footprints, such as when the cabinet initiated the push for a skate park that now acts as a useful hangout for city youth.
But other, more typical activities included a subcommittee in 2001 to study the source of graffiti (apparently it wasn’t cans of spray-paint) and passing a resolution in 2003 to “wholeheartedly support the community effort to keep the Ottawa Senators in Ottawa and write a letter to them to this effect.”
The cabinet had means at their disposal. It got its own modest budget to work with ($7,000 in 2003) and it even had access to city councillors since some, usually Bell-South Nepean Coun. Jan Harder or Innes Coun. Rainer Bloess, were supposed to attend the meetings.
But the elected officials soon stopped coming when the unelected youth members didn’t even show up themselves.
When it finally became apparent the cabinet simply wasn’t working, city councillors mercifully and unanimously killed the project in mid-January.
Thus ended the youth cabinet’s unremarkable run.
The motivations for starting it were honest enough, and if the plan had been executed properly with the right people it may actually have had some impact.
Perhaps the cabinet was simply the wrong vehicle to get youth involved. School, jobs, extracurriculars and social lives already weigh heavily on the daily routine of 15 to 25 year-olds.
But it’s hard to understand why enough of these youth councillors couldn’t even get it together to meet the quorum requirements to actually hold a meeting. Why fight for something if you’re not going to use it?
These youth had their chance to have a say and they just shrugged and walked away. The next time Ottawa’s youth want a seat at the table, they shouldn’t be surprised if their demands fall on deaf ears.
— Joel Kom