“Why keep your wish a secret?” CBC News asks with their recently unveiled Facebook initiative, called the Great Canadian Wish List. Last week, CBC News, Facebook, and Student Vote, a non-partisan youth organization, joined forces to engage young Canadians in the issues that matter most to them. And by looking at the “wishes” currently posted—from anti-abortion to spiritual revival—one may think that student perspectives have shifted considerably to conservative values.

The Great Canadian Wish List asks Canadians to share wishes for their country in the lead up to Canada Day, which has resulted in calls for everything from reductions in tuition to changing the $20 bill to feature Don Cherry’s picture.

With the Great Canadian Wish List, CBC is hoping to bring Canadians from around the country together to actively participate in this new “national conversation.”

“It comes from finding new ways to engage the audience, and to engage people to think about the future of the country,” said CBC News reporter and co-founder of the initiative, Mike Wise. “We wanted to engage people in conversation.”

By registering for Facebook, like almost 3 million other Canadians already have, and by joining the group, Canadians gain access to the hundreds of “wishes” already being promoted. A member is able to create a wish or show support for current wishes. New features also allow a member to notify their friends when they have created a wish.

Just a week since the project was introduced, over 7000 Canadians have become group members. Already, a wide array of wishes have been made. One group even boasts the title: “I wish the CBC would stop creating stupid youth-outreach campaigns.”

Co-founder Taylor Gunn of Student Vote stresses that the site is not moderated by any of the affiliated. “I can’t think of anyone else who would provide this kind of freedom. I think it’s empowering for the users,” he said. “In a way, it’s almost as democratic as you can get.”

So, which wishes are getting the most support? “I wish that there was an end to abortion in Canada,” wrote David Gilbert of Wilfred Laurier University in the description of his wish. He is apparently not alone. Thanks to a web feature that displays the top votes, according to membership, visitors to the site can link to the profiles of top wishes. With over 2300 members, the group Abolish Abortion in Canada, has by far the largest foundation of support.

Second, with over 1045 supporters, is a wish calling for a spiritual revival in our nation.

Taken at face value, a number of the top groups would suggest that the young Canadians quickest to become involved in the project are eager to advocate a return to more conservative social values. Another top group, for example, call for the traditional definition of marriage between a man and a woman be restored.

In addition, though CBC and Student Vote asked participants to “lay off the swearing and the bickering,” a large number of the discussions have deteriorated into protracted rants, many of which include personal smears.

According to David Hicks, an active participant on the site, the Great Canadian Wish List project can serve as “a litmus test of where our culture is at.” Others dispute the extent to which the project has succeeded in capturing the essence of Canadian youth. Some suggest that the site may be featured distorted Canadian values among young people.

“I don’t think we’ve seen a lot of revival of traditional values among youth,” said Donna Dasko, vice-president of Environics Research Group. When asked whether support for liberal values is waning, Ms. Dasko stressed that while traditional values and attitudes like anti-abortion may be espoused by a small minority, the vast majority of young Canadians continue to show disproportionate support for more liberal ethics.

Dr. Sylvia Bashevkin, President of University College, UofT, echoes Dasko’s views. She emphasizes that while “students are a varied social category,” her own observations “suggest ongoing support and indeed strengthened commitment to main progressive causes.”

Granted, fewer than 8000 Canadian youth have joined up with the project to date. But why have social conservatives been dominating the debate thus far?

According to Dr. Bashevkin, “Sometimes political action is inversely related to political success, meaning that groups become increasingly engaged as they see their influence waning. The unwillingness of the Harper government to pursue the goals of the social right in Canada as assiduously and publicly as that interest would like may help to explain these developments.”

Indeed, student David Hicks chose to make his wish public because he felt that abortion was being ignored by what he sees as liberal-leaning media outlets, when in fact, many Canadians are anxious to bring the issue to debate.

When asked if he was surprised by the results of the project so far, CBC reporter Mike Wise suggested that the core of people supporting these views feel that they are not being represented in the mainstream discussions.

In this way, “they’re using this [project] for what it’s intended to do—to raise issues and try to collect support around it.”

Co-founder Taylor Gunn argues that the fact of participation, in and of itself, merits some celebration. “We pay attention to the results but the results aren’t the real outcome for us. The outcome is who’s participating… how they’re participating.”

The Great Canadian Wish List serves to provide Canadians with an opportunity to become active in discussion about specific issues. The project focuses on ‘wishes;’ thus, students who feel less comfortable navigating the bewildering labyrinth of partisan politics can use this alternative avenue to become connected to a more issue-centered debate.

The idea is that while some youth feel disengaged from bigger social issues like poverty or human rights, they may be more likely to get riled up over closer-to-home problems, like garbage in their city streets.

The idea is also to get Canadians thinking about the future. By directly attaching their name to a wish, students prioritize and vocalize what problems they see as the most pressing for Canada.

“We’re asking [Canadians’ to come in and get a little creative and think about the future of their country,” says Gunn.

Me? I’m still deciding whether it’s more crucial for me to Make Poverty History or “spread the love” by opening Tim Hortons in Australia.

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