[CUPE healthcare list] Ontario: Health is top teen election issue;

[Jennifer Whiteside <jwhiteside@cupe.ca>]

Health is top teen election issue; Survey of high schoolers shows ER wait times, commuting, tuition rank as biggest concerns

Toronto Star
Mon Sep 12 2011
Page: GT8
Section: Greater Toronto
Byline: Kristin Rushowy Toronto Star

Health and education are by far the top concerns of Ontario teens, says a survey of high school students to be released Monday.

Student Vote, a non-profit, non-partisan group, which runs mock elections in schools - alongside the real ones locally, provincially and federally - also found that students cite commute times and tuition fees as other big issues.

"I felt the most important issues were health care, transportation - the transit here just isn't as good as the TTC," said Trishanna Robertson, 17, a Grade 12 student whose family moved to Ajax from Toronto two years ago.

"I never take the bus up here, I just get rides," she added. "The schedules are really different and there's hardly any buses that come."

Even though she's not old enough to vote in October's provincial election, "I still have something to say," she added.

The online survey of roughly 1,200 high school students, conducted in August, found that 71 per cent of teens identified emergency room wait times as a pressing health care issue, followed by long-term care and "obesity and access to food."

Tuition costs were cited by 87 per cent of respondents, followed by technology in education (28 per cent) and secondary school course fees (17 per cent).

Student Vote, which began nine years ago, has more than 2,000 Ontario elementary and secondary schools registered to take part in a parallel election, with about 300,000 students voting in their schools on Oct. 4 and 5.

The results will be released after the close of the actual polls Oct. 6.

 

 

Jennifer Whiteside

Senior Officer/Agente principale

Research, Job Evaluation and Health & Safety Branch/

Service de la recherche, de l’évaluation des emplois et de la santé-sécurité

Canadian Union of Public Employees/SCFP

1375 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, ON K1G 0Z7

(613) 237-1590, x 248