Are high schoolers too immature for new Youth Council?

The poster they're using to promote Saturday's Youth Forum at the Holiday Inn shows a young person with a taped-over mouth.

"Let it rip!" the poster proclaims.

"Speak and be heard. Come be a part of the new agenda supporting the creation of a Youth Council for Sault Ste. Marie."

Earlier this week, City Council unanimously endorsed the establishment of a local Youth Council.

According to the poster, anyone can participate in Saturday's forum, so long as they're under the age of 30.

But reading the minutes of the December 9 meeting of the City's Youth Opportunities Task Force, you'd wonder just how much representation local secondary school students will really be allowed when members are chosen for the new council.

Or whether high schoolers will be muzzled as effectively as the youth on the poster, by adults who consider them too immature to have meaningful suggestions to make about their own future.

Mayor opposed to involving high schoolers?

The minutes quote Ward 4 Councillor Neil DelBianco as saying that Mayor John Rowswell "would only support a Youth Council consisting of university and college students, and not high school students."

Asked about that today, DelBianco said he was accurately quoted.

DelBianco said he'd be personally willing to allow even elementary school students to sit on the new Youth Council, but the mayor has told him that he wants only youth of college or university age because they'd provide better advice. However, Rowswell insists that DelBianco got it wrong.

Never said it, insists the mayor

Returning a call to SooToday.com from Parry Sound, on his way back from his transpolar presentation at Seneca College, the mayor said tonight that he'd take a Grade Nine student on the Youth Council if there was sufficient maturity.

But he sees the new council as an exercise in economic development.

To keep our young people from accepting out-of-town jobs, he needs to know what kind of jobs to create.

And to do that, he needs to hear from youth who've decided where their careers are headed.

That kind of input, he tells SooToday.com, is more likely to come from college and university students than from high schoolers.

If you go

Youth Forum 2004 takes place this Saturday (February 7) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Holiday Inn's Grand Ballroom,

For further information about the event, please click here.