The Western Canada Youth Parliament (WCYP) is a biennial event that brings together delegations from the British Columbia Youth Parliament

British Columbia Youth Parliament

The British Columbia Youth Parliament is a youth service organization that operates in the guise of a "parliament" in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The BCYP fulfills its motto of "Youth Serving Youth" by means of "legislation" enacting community service projects and other...

 (BCYP), the TUXIS Parliament of Alberta

TUXIS Parliament of Alberta

The TUXIS Parliament of Alberta is one of a number of provincial model youth parliaments that has its origins in the "boys work" movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. TUXIS originally met under the name “Alberta Older Boy's Parliament”. The Alberta Older Boy's Parliament added...

, the Saskatchewan Youth Parliament

Saskatchewan Youth Parliament

The Saskatchewan Youth Parliament is a non-partisan organization of young people that meets to discuss and debate political and social issues. Members learn about the mechanics of government, such as parliamentary procedure, decision making, and the rules of debate in a parliamentary democracy...

 (SYP) and the Youth Parliament of Manitoba

Youth Parliament of Manitoba

Established in 1922, Youth Parliament of Manitoba is a non-partisan, non-denominational, non-profit organization that educates youth in effective public speaking and the parliamentary process. It is open to all youth in the Canadian province of Manitoba who will be between 16 and 20 years old as...

 (YPM) for a four-day parliamentary session, usually during the Victoria Day

Victoria Day

Victoria Day is a federal Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday before May 25, in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday. The date is also, simultaneously, that on which the current reigning Canadian sovereign's official birthday is recognized...

 long weekend. The hosting for the WCYP rotates amongst these four youth parliaments. The members at each session of the WCYP debate resolutions in the form of legislation. The rules of parliamentary debate for each WCYP are those of the host province.

WCYP formation and history

The first recorded discussion of holding a western Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 youth parliament was in 1959. That year, the members of the TUXIS Parliament of Alberta debated but defeated a resolution supporting the creation of a "Western Canada Older Boys' Parliament." It would be over twenty years before the next proposal for a western Canadian youth parliament occurred. In 1981, the Youth Parliament of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario (as it was then known) organized the first Western Canada Youth Parliament as a project to commemorate their 60th anniversary. It was also designed to be an inter-provincial event to fill the gap between sessions of the now defunct Youth Parliament of Canada/Parlement jeunesse du Canada

Youth Parliament of Canada/Parlement jeunesse du Canada

The Youth Parliament of Canada/Parlement jeunesse du Canada was a youth model parliament that met bi-annually, and later annually, in the 1980s...

, which at that time was only held bi-annually. While the British Columbia Youth Parliament did not officially endorse its participation in the first WCYP, representatives of all four western Canadian youth parliaments did attend that first session.

The first Western Canada Youth Parliament in which all four western provincial youth parliaments officially participated was held in the Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 legislature

Legislative Assembly of Alberta

The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is one of two components of the Legislature of Alberta, the other being the Queen, represented by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. The Alberta legislature meets in the Alberta Legislature Building in the provincial capital, Edmonton...

 in 1983.

The success of that WCYP encouraged the constituent parliaments to agree to hold the event bi-annually to alternate with the Youth Parliament of Canada. The next session was held in Winnipeg in July 1985. The BCYP hosted in 1987, holding the session in the senate chambers of the University of Victoria

University of Victoria

The University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...

. The Saskatchewan Youth Parliament took its turn hosting the May 1989 session in the provincial Legislative Building in Regina

Regina, Saskatchewan

Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...

. The 1987 session hosted an ambassador from the Junior Statesmen of America

Junior State of America

The Junior State of America is an American non-partisan student-run youth organization. It is also the largest high school student-run organization in the country...

 from Washington State. The 1989 session was notable in that it was the first time an ambassador attended from one of the eastern Canadian youth parliaments, being a member of the Nova Scotia Youth Parliament.

The rotation of Westerns has since cycled bi-annually between the four provinces in its original sequence, except for the seventh session, which came after a two-year hiatus.

Locations and personages

Western Canada Youth Parliament (by Session)

Session	Year	Province	City	Lieutenant Governor	Speaker	Premier
1	1983	AB Alberta Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...	Edmonton	?	David Marriott	Thomas Marr
2	1985	MB Manitoba Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...	Winnipeg	Lloyd Axworthy Lloyd Axworthy Lloyd Norman Axworthy, PC, OC, OM is a prominent Canadian politician, statesman and University President from Manitoba. He is best known for having served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien...	?	Erminia Pallone
3	1987	BC British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...	Victoria Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...	Emery Barnes Emery Barnes Emery Barnes, OBC was a Canadian football player and Canadian politician.Born in Louisiana and raised in Oregon, Barnes was a gifted athlete, and was an alternate hi-jumper for the 1952 US Olympic Track and Field team...	Robert MacDonald	Geoff Glave
4	1989	SK Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....	Regina Regina, Saskatchewan Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...	Arnold Tusa Arnold Tusa Arnold Bernard Tusa is a Canadian politician, who represented the electoral district of Last Mountain-Touchwood in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan from 1982 to 1991. A member of the Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative Party, he served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in his second...	Ken Millard	Scott Quendack
5	1991	AB	Edmonton	?	?	?
6	1993	MB	Winnipeg	Edward Schreyer Edward Schreyer Edward Richard Schreyer , commonly known as Ed Schreyer, is a Canadian politician, diplomat, and statesman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 22nd since Canadian Confederation....	David Cantor	Sherri Pierce
7	1996	BC	Burnaby Burnaby, British Columbia Burnaby is a city in British Columbia, Canada, located immediately to the east of Vancouver. It is the third-largest city in British Columbia by population, surpassed only by nearby Surrey and Vancouver....	Gordon Downing	Geoff Glave	Jennifer Jay
8	1998	SK	Regina	Jack Wiebe Jack Wiebe John E. N. "Jack" Wiebe, was a Canadian farmer and politician. He served as a provincial politician, the 18th Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan and also as a Senator....	Michael Zwaagstra	Tricia Kaminski
9	2000	AB	Edmonton	David Marriott	Dale Harris	Ali Buckingham
10	2002	MB	Winnipeg	Stuart Olmstead	Donna Chanas	Michael Feuerstein
11	2004	BC	Vancouver	Val Anderson Val Anderson Val Anderson was a politician in British Columbia, Canada. He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 1991 general election, as a candidate of the BC Liberal Party, and was re-elected in the 1996 and 2001 elections....	Aniz Alani	Swithin D'Souza
12	2006	SK	Regina	Warren McCall Warren McCall Warren McCall is a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. A member of the , he was first elected in a February 2001 by-election. McCall has subsequently been returned to the Legislative Assembly by the people of Elphinstone-Centre in the 2003 and 2007 general elections.McCall is the...	Matt Leisle	Arielle Zerr
13	2008	AB	Edmonton	Grant Mitchell Grant Mitchell (politician) -Early life:He received a B.A. degree from the University of Alberta and an M.A. degree from Queen's University. From 1976 to 1979, he worked as a public servant with the Government of Alberta...	Mat Johnson	Maureen Hasinoff
14	2010	MB	Winnipeg	Allen Mills	Dana Gregoire	Darcy Vermeulen
15	2012	BC	Vancouver	TBA	TBA	TBA

External links

• British Columbia Youth Parliament
• TUXIS Parliament of Alberta
• Saskatchewan Youth Parliament
• Youth Parliament of Manitoba