A local school recently learned about the legislative process in Canada first-hand.
On Tuesday at St. Francis School, the Community Outreach Program of the Legislative Assembly took place to teach student’s about Ontario’s parliament.
“Our programs are typically linked to the school curriculum,” explained Stephanie Brousseau of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
“For the Grade 5s, this means a focus on an introduction to the levels of government, how parliament functions and the main parliamentary players.”
The most popular part of the program was the mock debate, according to Brosseau.
“The students chose a fictional bill to debate, the topic was related to a provincial responsibility and the class was divided into a government and opposition,” she remarked.
“Students in the class also took on the roles of our major parliamentary players such as the speaker, clerk and sergeant-at-arms.”
The free education program that brought the interactive Legislative Assembly lesson to the school was launched in 2011 and is designed for schools that may not be able to visit the Assembly physically, across the province.
Schools in Thunder Bay and Dryden also received similar lessons to the one delivered at St. Francis School.
