One down, another around the corner

And the winner is?

The 2006 municipal election concluded on November 13 with London seeing very little change in key leadership positions within the city.

Anne Marie DeCicco-Best won her third consecutive term as Mayor of London, handily defeating former Liberal Member of Parliament Joe Fontana. DeCicco-Best accumulated 57.7 per cent of the votes, while Fontana managed only 35.7 per cent of the total votes.

Winning seats on the Board of Control were Tom Gosnell, 16.1 per cent of the votes, Gina Barber, 15.8 per cent, Bud Polhill, 13.4 per cent, and Gord Hume, 12.6 per cent.

Re-elected as councilor of Ward 3, the location of Fanshawe College, was Bernie MacDonald whose 72.5 per cent of the votes easily defeated second place finisher Rod Morley, who gathered 15.4 per cent of the votes.

In the wake of this year's municipal election, and with the upcoming provincial election that will take place in October of 2007, the College Student Alliance (CSA), which Fanshawe is a member, launched a province wide campaign, Check Yourself, to oncourage young people on college campuses to get engaged in the election process.

“The campaigning for the October 4 provincial election has already started, and college students need to be actively engaged in the process,” said Matt Jackson, president of the CSA. “Only 25 per cent of youth bothered to vote in the 2003 federal election, even though elections can have a clear impact on our education. As students, we must strive to have more influence.”

Check Yourself hopes to engage, educate, and empower college and university students to make their voice heard during the upcoming campaign period. The CSA developed a web site, www.speakuporshutup.ca, to provide the college student body with a clear message to become involved in voting.

“If the youth do not stand up and speak up for things that are important to them, then others will command the attention of government and we could easily revert when funding for post-secondary education was being cut,” Jackson said. “College students have started to see positive changes being implemented as a result of the McGuinty government's ‘Reaching Higher' plan, but there is much more that needs to be done and college students are worth more.”

The CSA is a member-driven advocacy and student leadership organization that proudly serves Ontario's college and college-university students. The CSA currently represents 16 colleges and 22 student associations with over 109,000 full-time student members throughout the province.