Young Citizens
The Young Citizens program is a complementary program to heritage fairs. Each student is tasked with creating a short video report on the topic they
explored for their heritage fair project. The student videos are posted online at YoungCitizens.ca or JeunesCitoyens.ca, where they are encouraged to share them with family, friends, and community members.
The best videos will be selected by popular vote across the country and a review by a panel of judges. Ultimately, the winners will win a trip to Ottawa to present their film and participate at the Canada’s History Youth Forum.
In 2016, 200 students created videos
The videos were viewed more than 40,000 times. The national vote was a great success with more than 40,500 votes cast and the videos received more than 5000 comments.
Every year, young citizens give interviews to dozens of regional and national media. The program has received national coverage by CBC and CTV (links below).
CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/ID/2252193338/
CTV : http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=3856122
Details will follow about the 2020 program.
Regional Distribution of Young Citizens for 2016-2017
Canada’s History would like to produce 200 student videos from across Canada for the 2017 Ottawa Student Conference
Participation for Young Citizens is based on regional population and heritage fair participation:
| Province / Territory | Minimum Participation |
| Manitoba | 14 student projects will be chosen at the RRHF to create a video of their project topic and submit it.
From the national on line voting and the selection committee 2 students will be chosen to move forward to go to Ottawa to represent Manitoba |
Creating the video
Canada’s History has created a document called Participant Guidelines which provides information and advice about all the stages of video creation. We also recommend that participants watch a few of the videos from previous years to get a sense of what’s required. Some of the main guidelines include:
- Videos must be between 3 and 4 minutes long. Videos that don’t meet this time requirement (over or under the time) will be penalized
- Students must cite their sources and respect all copyright rules
- Videos should be submitted to Canada’s History via the free, file-transfer program called Dropbox
All videos must be received by Canada’s History before June 5, 2017
Ideas and Inspiration for 2016-2017
There is no set theme for Young Citizens this year, but students may wish to explore a topic related to a number of special anniversaries coming up:
- 150th anniversary of confederation
- 100th anniversary of the battles of Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele
- 125th anniversary of the Stanley Cup and the 100th Anniversary of the National Hockey League (NHL)
- 75th Anniversary of the Dieppe Raid
- 375th Anniversary of the city of Montréal
- 50th Anniversary of Expo ‘67
The winners
Two students will be chosen to represent Manitoba Young Citizens, they will travel to Ottawa to attend the Canada’s History Youth Forum in fall 2017.
Young Citizens Timeline Calendar 2016 -17
| November 26-29, 2016 | Canada’s History Youth Forum in Ottawa |
| November 27-28, 2016 | National conference with all provincial and territorial Heritage Fair coordinators. |
| Fall 2016 | Promotion of Heritage Fairs and Young Citizens in schools and education conferences. |
| April/May, 2017 | Heritage Fairs across Canada take place |
| May 4, 2017 | Red River Heritage Fair |
| June 1, 2017 | Deadline to participate Kayak Kids’ Illustrated History Challenge |
| June 5, 2017 | Deadline to submit Young Citizen videos to Canada’s History |
| June 12, 2017 | Online vote opens for Young Citizens |
| June 30, 2017 | Final report Deadline for 2016-2017 Heritage Fairs and Young Citizens programs |
| July 1, 2017 | Canada History Week |
| July 7, 2017 | Online vote for Young Citizens closes |
| August, 2017 | Young Citizens recipients are announced |
| November, 2017 | Canada’s History Youth Forum in Ottawa |