Name: Vincent Chiu
Party: Greens
Profession: Student
Education: High school
Achievements: 2013 Richmond Student Leadership Council chair 2015 U-Roc leadership award
Theme Song: What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
Three Priorities: 1. Reduce youth unemployment. 2. Improve transparency with whistler-blower protection. 3. Let government scientists speak freely.
Among the represented parties in Ottawa, Vincent Chiu is one of the youngest federal candidate in this election.
A recent high school graduate, Chiu already has a long resume of volunteer work in the youth community.
The 18-year-old now attends the University of B.C., taking three courses as he campaigns for the Greens.
Chiu hopes to obtain an arts degree in interdisciplinary studies, focusing on the communication aspects of economic, social and environmental sustainability.
He wants to foster better collaboration between people and chose the Greens because they aren’t whipped.
Chiu is not afraid to challenge Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“Right now Parliament is confrontational. Before the Harper government, within committees, there was more collaboration,” says Chiu. He calls the government’s security agenda “absurd.”
“Forty years ago the idea of freedom was that your kids could pursue their dreams. Nowadays freedom is more about security, whereas security right now is a non-issue when it comes to domestic terrorism,” says Chiu.
He says the prevailing practice of reducing deficits by increasing exports ignores the need to decrease imports.
“There are industries where we waste a significant amount of money on what we buy, like apparel.”
On energy, Chiu says the Greens will divest from fossil fuels to clean energy, but it will “take some time.” On immigration, “we don’t really need economic immigrants, we need high-skilled workers because with baby boomers retiring we will have a skilled-worker deficit.”
On keeping marijuana illegal, Chiu said prohibition funds organized crime, and costs the government money to jail people.
