UASU hosts watch party for federal English leaders’ debate

On April 17, the University of Alberta Students’ Union (UASU) hosted a watch party for the 2025 federal election English leaders’ debate. The watch party, hosted at Dewey’s, was complete with a special menu and bingo cards. 

Students could check off their bingo cards as the leaders said or did what was included in the boxes. The cards mentioned more specific issues like tariffs and the housing crisis. It didn’t take long for students to complete a bingo-line and win the prizes. 

The watch party was part of the UASU’s Get Out the Vote campaign. Get Out the Vote is a non-partisan effort with the Canadian Alliance for Student Associations (CASA) to encourage students to vote in elections. 

Students were able to vote ahead of advanced polls in the Students’ Union Building (SUB) from April 13 to 16. This was done through Elections Canada’s Vote on Campus program, which offers early voting on campuses across Canada.

According to CASA’s press release, the program has been “a significant boost to student voter accessibility.”

The UASU also shared information for voters on its blog, The Flame. 

Housing is the primary issue in this election for most students

The Gateway spoke to a few students who attended the watch party. Aria said she wanted to hear more about housing. 

“They haven’t really talked about exactly what they’re going to do [about housing],” Aria said.

She also said the debate didn’t influence how she planned to vote. 

“The person I got the most information about — I was already planning to vote for them anyway.”

Ervin, an international student, said that immigration, housing, and the cost-of-living were the primary concerns they wanted to hear the leaders talk about. 

“The housing supply and cost-of-living needs to be addressed in order to maintain that, because immigration is always going to be the bloodline for any nation when it comes to growing the economy and having more people working in the service sector,” Ervin said.

One student joked that they wish they could vote for the Bloc Quebecois, which only runs candidates in Quebec. William, however, said he found it annoying that the Bloc leader, Yves-François Blanchet, only talked about Quebec when issues affect the country more widely. 

He said the three other leaders had basically identical platforms with “tiny shifts in their ideology.”

But housing was still the biggest issue for him. 

“I’m not going to buy a house as a student, but most housing is extremely expensive.”