By Pat Johnson
Contributing writer

Wednesday’s provincial election will be actress Vanessa Violini’s second run for public office—the Green Party candidate for Vancouver-Fairview ran in the 1997 federal election in her native Alberta. That wouldn’t be particularly remarkable were it not for the fact that she’s only 25. This time around, voters are apt to bill and coo over her adorable eight-month-old son, Tao, whom she totes to campaign events. Four years ago, the candidate herself inspired the cooing.

"You’re so cute. How old are you?" was a not-uncommon reaction in a campaign where her message was often eclipsed by her youth.

It’s a lament that’s common among the raft of younger candidates in this campaign. Being a young candidate has certain benefits—apparently unlimited energy for the gruelling campaign, for instance—but they’re outnumbered by disadvantages, not least of which is a lack of respect.

Voters are reluctant to even consider candidates in their 20s or younger. Although many have a list of community accomplishments as long or longer than their older opponents, young candidates often find their views dismissed, based solely on their ages.

The media has played into this tendency by depicting young candidates as an indication parties have reached the bottom of the barrel. Like ill-prepared soldiers thrown into battle by a desperate army, these young foot soldiers are examples of hasty recruitment, according to a few recent news stories.

In the West Side riding of Vancouver-Quilchena, 19-year-old NDP candidate Gareth Richmond—who also left in the midst of the campaign for a scheduled trip to Cuba—was featured in a national news story under the headline "Pizza delivery boy a sacrificial lamb." Of course, he is a sacrificial lamb, but so, according to the polls, are most of the NDP’s candidates of any age.

The nasty innuendo ignores the fact that many young candidates have plenty to offer. Indeed, some of Canada’s most famous names got their start in politics at an early age. Among them Jean Chretien, elected to Parliament at 29; Sheila Copps, elected to the Ontario legislature at 29; Jean Charest, MP at 26; Svend Robinson, MP at 27; Gary Farrell-Collins, MLA at 28, and the list goes on.

This time around, the NDP, the Greens, the Marijuana Party and the Unity Party all show a fair sampling of young people on their candidate lists. The Liberals, though they have numerous MLAs and candidates in their 30s, have fewer who are younger than that. To an extent, the cynical mavens of the media are correct: it’s easier for a young candidate to get the nomination for a party that’s down on its luck than for one that’s riding high, as is the case with the Liberals. But that may mean simply that age and power elbowed youth and idealism out of the way at the nomination meeting.

For candidates like Am Johal, hope springs eternal. He’s the young New Democrat selected to run against Gordon Campbell in Vancouver-Point Grey this year. Johal admits it’s an uphill fight, but seems to enjoy the thrill of the climb. What cuts a little, though, is the way the media has treated him and some of his colleagues in recent weeks.

Johal is a 28-year-old native of Williams Lake, a first-generation Canadian of Indian parents. Like many younger politicians, he cut his teeth in university politics. Upset at interference by UBC’s student government in the affairs of the newspaper, the Ubyssey, he and a slate of candidates decided to make a point by running in the Alma Mater Society elections. To their surprise, six out of seven, including Johal, won. During his year on the AMS and in the years since, he’s used his connections in the university’s administration and his apparently ceaseless shmoozing skills to develop partnerships that have accomplished much, including the development of a bursary program for students to obtain child care.

Since graduating, he’s used his UBC connections and political strings to make things happen. While working for the highways minister, he helped get a lane of University Boulevard closed to traffic and designated as a bike path. His connections to people like Jim Green allowed him to help set up two innovative programs in the Downtown Eastside: Humanities 101, a UBC-linked program where Downtown Eastside residents study the classics and philosophy and attend cultural events such as the opera; and a free dental care program provided through the UBC school of dentistry and Portland Hotel Society.

So when you ask Am Johal if he is the bottom of the barrel, wind him up and let him go:

"I say that I believe in child care, but I’ve actually done something about it....I say that I believe in cycling, but I’ve helped shut down a lane of traffic. I say I believe in accessible education. I don’t just believe in it, I’ve actually set up a program that still exists with people in the Downtown Eastside. I don’t just say that I believe in accessible medical issues, I’ve helped to set up a dental clinic that’s out there working. So I think if people want things delivered from government, I have a record of service to prove it....And if people are going to call me the bottom of the barrel for that, it doesn’t bother me. I know who I am."

It’s easy to believe Johal will go far, although it’s hard to imagine that happening in this particular election. But that’s OK with him. He’s not sure politics is the best place to get things done anyway.

"Sometimes I question myself whether being involved formally in politics is necessarily the best way of being political. Because working at the community level where you actually develop projects and see what actually happens is a lot more rewarding sometimes than standing on the Burrard Street bridge and getting fingered at by people."

Johal says it’s not being a lefty in Point Grey, but something much more institutionalized that limits the horizon for him and other potential young candidates.

Johal graduated from university with substantial student loans and, as someone at the beginning of his working life, has little in the way of savings. Top that with the need to take a leave of absence from one’s job and it seems like a good recipe for keeping young people out of the political arena.

Karn Manhas, the 24-year-old Liberal candidate in Port Coquitlam-Burke Mountain is, like all Liberal candidates this election, in an enviable position. In fact, Manhas seems like someone who doesn’t have a lot of worries—except, perhaps, the state of the provincial economy, the nine friends from high school who he says have been forced out of B.C. to find work, and the need to create the kind of provincial government that will spur economic growth.

Highly articulate, polished, well-educated and with genuine charm, Manhas, like most Liberal candidates, glides through this riding of cul-de-sacs and strip malls getting nods of agreement. He’s opposing Health Minister Mike Farnworth and, just to add a twist, Unity party leader Chris Delaney, making Port Coquitlam-Burke Mountain one of the few constituencies likely to experience substantial splitting of the right-of-centre vote.

Where Johal gets fingered on the Burrard Street bridge, Manhas is greeted warmly by almost everyone, including a woman with a Farnworth sign in her front yard. Young parents arriving home with SUVs filled with groceries react tentatively, then smile and, as often as not, promise him their vote. It turns out Manhas and his two campaign workers haven’t brought enough signs to satisfy the demand in just a few blocks of door-to-door campaigning.

The young candidate, a small businessman in the high-tech field, talks about how his heritage affected his decision to run as a Liberal.

"My granddad came to British Columbia in 1927 from India," says Manhas. "And he always impressed on us the importance of the foundation that he had laid and keeping that going in the family...Everything that we had in our family we gained from this place."

When Manhas left to study at McGill University in Montreal, his grandfather gave him the silent treatment. "He thought I was turning my back on B.C."

His grandfather died last year, but not before Manhas had thrown his hat into the ring for the Liberal nomination. The elder Manhas—Kashmir—had been a Liberal supporter for decades.

For people who know him, Karn Manhas’s decision to run came as no surprise—he joined his first campaign at 14 and was active in campus politics at McGill. Manhas insists younger candidates are vital to democracy. "I represent a viewpoint that someone at 44 just wouldn’t understand. If you decide that everybody who should be elected to the legislature needs to be between 40 and 65, you might as well not call it a legislative assembly. Call it a legislative assembly of middle-aged people because that’s what it becomes. What I have to offer is the perspective of a young person growing up in British Columbia. The frustration of not being able to plan a future in this province."

The Unity Party—an amalgam of most of the province’s tiny right-wing groups—is running several young people, including 20-year-old Paul Stilwell (son of party deputy leader and controversial Surrey school board trustee Heather Stilwell) in Vancouver-Fraserview, and Dario Todorovic, an earnest UBC student who is also 20, in Delta North.

Todorovic came to Canada just seven years ago from Croatia, though his impeccable diction betrays little or no accent. A top soccer referee official who’s also immersed in volunteer work with mentally and developmentally challenged people, Todorovic takes classical studies and acts as deputy ombudsman at the university, among a litany of other responsibilities.

Searching for a political home, he found Unity, whose pro-life plank was especially appealing.

In his campaign, he’s seen both people who dismiss him as a youngster—or assume he’s parroting the views of a dominant older figure—and those who think new voices are needed. "Quite a few people have a tendency to say, quite simply, ‘You’ve been pushed into it by someone.’"

He doesn’t let that get to him, however, and is always polite when people disagree on issues of age or policy, like abortion.

Todorovic didn’t have to seek the nomination; he says the Unity Party asked him to run in Delta North, where incumbent Liberal Reni Masi and the New Democrat—former MLA and longtime councillor Norm Lortie—are both in their 60s. In this milieu, Todorovic hopes his candidacy will stand out.

Nearby, in Surrey-White Rock, 26-year-old Matt Todd hopes to stand out too. The New Democrat is in his fourth run for public office—he’s taken a stab at White Rock council, the Surrey school board and, last year, the area’s federal seat.

Since his first run five years ago, Todd has seen changes for the better in the way he is received. Back then, voters were dismissive, accusing him of being uneducated and lacking life experience.

"They just couldn’t understand how a young person could have valid opinions on anything." Things are better now, he says, but it may not be a sign of the public’s willingness to entertain young politicos. "A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m getting older, which is frustrating."

His NDP colleague in West Vancouver-Capilano, Matt Lovick, is a 19-year-old university student who parachuted in from New Westminster. In West Van, his youth—and the fact that he’s openly gay—is largely overlooked.

"I think they’re blinded by the fact that I’m with the NDP," he says with a laugh. "I thought people would have been patronizing."

Lovick’s party affiliation has resulted in doors being slammed in his face and constituents swearing at him on doorsteps. But Lovick, who faces almost certain defeat, was prepared for that reception and is having fun with what he imagines is the first of numerous campaigns. In the meantime, he just moved out of his parents’ house and got his own place off Commercial Drive. Though family members are supportive of his venture, they’re dyed-in-the-wool Liberals, says Lovick.

"They support me," he says. "They just wouldn’t vote for me."

Historian and former MLA David Mitchell characterizes the treatment of candidates like Gareth Richmond, as "traditional sneering" on the part of the news media and others who don’t take intelligent young people seriously.

He agrees with Manhas that legislatures should represent the diversity of the people they represent, based on ethnicity, gender, religion or age. However, he’s not optimistic that the day is nigh.

And while a large number of young candidates may be running for office this election, Mitchell insists it doesn’t represent a major demographic shift.

A large number of the young people offering themselves up for election, he says, are political party operatives—what he refers to, not unkindly, as "political junkies." Though some young activists have come up through the ranks of the party and taken nominations, they’re an aberration, says Mitchell, who argues the tendency among young people is away from conventional party politics and into "extraparliamentary" activism.

Youth involvement in community-based activities or in the kind of demonstrations witnessed against free trade in Seattle and, more recently, in Quebec, has grown tremendously. Yet a large number of those people probably don’t even bother voting, says Mitchell, who is troubled by the trend.

Whether young people get out and vote or not, the fact remains that none of these young candidates will succeed without gaining the support of their elders. There may be a natural tendency to dismiss young candidates as lacking experience or being too wide-eyed.

And commentators will likely continue to suggest that a political party is reaching the bottom of the barrel when it recruits younger candidates.