They are not even old enough to vote, yet dozens of students within the Rural Municipality of Ritchot can now claim they have been Mayor for a day.

When Chris Ewen was elected Mayor in 2017, his goal was to get more young people interested in politics. Since then, Ritchot has added a youth member to council and Ewen has also started a program called Mayor For The Day.

Ewen explains every few months he will visit a different classroom in the municipality and spend time talking with the students about voting, the election process and what it takes to become Mayor.

"We just talk about anything from leadership to what we do for the municipality as councillors and mayors," says Ewen.

The classes he visits could be anywhere from elementary students to high school. And that means the Ritchot Mayor can expect a wide range of questions. Ewen says kids will ask, are you scared? Is it hard? And, what kind of budgets do you prepare?

Ewen says the innocence of grade one students is particularly cute when they suggest the role of a Mayor is to be the boss of everybody. Sometimes he will talk about how to have a discussion as a council without getting mad or upset.

According to Ewen, this sort of opportunity did not exist when he was going to school, and that is a big reason why he is doing it.

"I think I would have been more interested in politics at a younger age had we had those opportunities where people came to the classes and not just did a reading day but just came and explained to us what exactly government was from the position of Mayor to Councillor to MLA to Member of Parliament," he says.

Ewen says one day these kids are going to be old enough to vote and he wants to try and get as many people as possible interested in municipal, provincial and federal politics.

Ewen suggests it is tough to say whether there have been any early returns from his attempts to grow politics at the youth level.

"The early returns I see are kids are just happy to see me participate in their class," he says. "It was a really heartfelt moment for me when they came up to me and they were just excited to see the Mayor and they gave me a big hug. So I think that's the return I'm looking for to start. And we'll see maybe in ten years they will be a voter and that's the best we can hope for."

Before leaving the class, Ewen hands each student a certificate, entitling them to be Mayor For The Day. The students also take an oath, pledging to stay honest, creative and helpful and to share and listen respectfully.