Eager to vote, new Canadians get crash course on electoral system in Winnipeg

Elizabeth Andrea never cast a ballot in her home country. The war raging in the Sudan stood between her and the polling station. 

In 1998 she moved to Canada. Four years later she became a citizen, and with that came a chance she had waiting for a long time.

"I was so excited and couldn't wait to vote," Andrea told Radio-Canada on Saturday. "I knew what it meant for me."

After marking "x" on the ballot several times since then, Andrea is trying to educate the next generation of voters in her family on the importance of voting so that when the time to hit the polls comes for them, they are engaged enough to do it. 

That's why she brought her grandchildren, who are 13 and 15, to an informative session for new Canadians on the federal electoral system.

"This is their home. They need to learn about politics, politics are everywhere," she said. "The person you vote for is your voice." 

Roughly 60 people came to the event held Saturday afternoon at the South Sudanese Canadian Community Centre. Dubbed 'Got Citizenship? Go Vote!' The informative session went over the voting process including the different ways of casting a ballot. 

Candidates from the NDP, Liberal and Green parties running to be the next MP in the venue's federal riding, Winnipeg-Centre, spoke to the audience.

It is the kind of session Amy Wang wished was around years ago for her first federal election as a Canadian citizen. 

Like Andrea, Wang, who has been living in Winnipeg for the past 20 years, didn't vote in her home country. 

The first time she was eligible to cast her ballot in Canada, she was at a loss. English was initially an obstacle to familiarizing herself with the political landscape, and she believes that ahead of April 28 there might be other new Canadians who are in the same position she had been then.

But "every vote is very important," she said. "This is what new Canadians or new immigrants need to know … that [they] can make a change."

Voting sometimes not a priority

The electoral system can be far back in the minds of new Canadians, who, up until getting their citizenship, might never have thought about voting or how it works, said Reuben Garang, the director of Immigration Partnership Winnipeg, which organized Saturday's event.

"Elections or voting sometimes is not a priority," he said, but when new Canadians are educated on why it is important to cast a ballot, they are more likely to go to a polling station. 

While the event covered the basics of the electoral system, it also "assures [new Canadians] that this is a free process because some of the people are coming from places where the election is not free," he said. 

The group has also taken to the internet to be a source of information on elections, uploading videos in several languages other than English and French, he said. 

The challenge remains in engaging people in the civic process, especially when the voting reflex is not ingrained in them, Garang said. 

However, new Canadians "are here because they wanna learn and be part of the society," he said, so "we make sure to ... inform them of the importance of voting in a democracy."