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Candace Maxymowich elected PC Party youth representative.

At the Progressive Conservative Party’s AGM in October, Candace Maxymowich was elected as the youth representative for the party. The position had been vacant since December 2012.

Maxymowich is no stranger to politics. She currently serves as an intern with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. This past summer, Maxymowich worked for the Progressive Conservative Party’s Blue Crew.

On November 8th, the PC Party held a Youth Engagement event at the Legislature.

Maxymowich had the opportunity to address the crowd.

Excerpts from speech below:

• “I’m going to start by sharing something Brene Brown said at a recent talk that I believe we can apply to our party. She portrayed a critical profile of our current society, but she concluded that there was hope for change. And it was not going to be in the form of a sweeping storm, it would take setting up small campfires of strength, innovation, good will, authenticity, and resilience.”
• “Being here today is one small campfire. It’s the first flame in really starting to create change to engage more young people in our party. We need more young people involved in our party in order to win the next election.”
• “There is a need to develop activities that seek to educate young people about what the Progressive Conservative Party stands for and what our values really are. But there is also a need to develop activities that engage our current youth members.”
• “I know that there are many ways for members to get involved in the party – be it with their local constituency association, fundraising, attending party events, and volunteering in campaigns.
• But I also know that constituency association meetings aren’t the most exciting thing and attending party events and volunteering in campaigns can be very intimidating, especially when you don’t know anyone. With attending party events, there can also be a financial barrier. Many of our young members are high school or university students who many not be able to afford to attend an AGM or party events. We need to make it so that our young members are able to attend these events.”
• “Like everyone else, young people want to do things that matter and there’s really no substitute for hands on experience. At the federal level, the Conservative Party has an internship program that runs every summer. I think we should consider doing something similar. I know the Blue Crew was very successful this past summer. I think we should consider maybe an internship program during the summer or during an election, where young members would be integrated into the party’s activities, participating in fundraisers, rallies, literature drops, phone banks, and so much more.”
• “With that being said, I think it’s also important to have more events just like this where our young members are able to connect with each other and with our MLAs.”
• “Young people are the future of our party and the future of our province and it is vitally important that we work to create opportunities for our young members to become more involved. Young people possess qualities fraught with limitless possibilities, and bring with them the winds of change, with an enormous and irrepressible vitality.”
• “Like Brene Brown said, it’s not something that will come in the form of a sweeping storm. Getting young people and our youth members more involved is not something that is going to happen overnight. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and it’s going to take time. But it’s something that needs to happen.”