A grade 10 Student from Grimshaw Jr./Sr. High School (GHS) is going to the Alberta Legislature.
Booke Foster (Photo/PRSD)
Brooke Foster has been selected to participate in the “Mr. Speaker’s MLA for a Day Program” at the provincial capital.
“I’m really excited to have been chosen for this,” Brooke told the AM 610 Newsroom. “It’ll be a nice change just to meet new people, and not just see the same old faces you grew up with.”
The program allows high school students the opportunity to learn more about the role of an MLA, take part in a debate, tour the legislature itself, meeting with current and former MLAs and take part in networking activities.
Brook says the part she’s really looking forward to is the debate, which will be taking place at the chamber itself.
“We’ll be debating a Post-Secondary Sponsorship Act that (the organizers) want us to discuss,” she said. “It’s just about corporations sponsoring youth going to school and working for them after graduation, that type of thing. We do get time for the first two days to organize for the debate, and then we debate on the third day.”
Alberta Legislative Assembly (Photo/daveberta.ca)
Each of the students will be separated into two groups, with one side being the government, and the other being the opposition. But, from what Brooke’s been told, they don’t get assigned which side they’re on until they get to the event.
“That’s been the challenge so far in preparing for the debate,” said Brooke. “I’ve had to think of the issue from both sides so I can be prepared for whichever side I get assigned to.”
But, all in all, she enjoys the challenge.
“I’m interested in the program because I’d like to learn how advanced politics work, in comparison to our school parliamentary procedures,” she said.
At her school Brooke also serves as Co-Prime Minister of the GHS Student Parliament Leadership Team, which organizes and plans events within both the school and the community.
The “MLA for a Day Program” starts on Sunday, May 7, 2017, and will conclude on Tuesday, May 9.
Brooke, along with all the other student participants across the province, will be staying at Grant MacEwan University during their time with the program.
– Posted by BET
