Pontiac High School student Ben Judd was one of 70 or so youth representatives from across the country who descended on the nation’s capital for the 4-H citizenship congress that ended last week.

Judd, who lives in Bristol with his parents Robin Judd and Jenn Russell-Judd, works on his family’s Starborn Farms and is in his tenth year with the Shawville 4-H club.

Last week he left the farm behind for Ottawa, where he spent six days representing Quebec at the annual event that sees youth nationwide gather to discuss challenges to the agricultural industry, and experience democracy firsthand.

According to its website, the program is “an opportunity for youth to strengthen their citizenship skills, connection and identity,” and Judd said he did a lot of that over the course of the week’s activities, which included a mock Senate, focus groups discussing agricultural issues, and getting to meet federal senators.
After arriving in Ottawa and getting to meet some of his 70 fellow participants from across the country, Ben and his cohort were divided into two parties for a mock debate on various agricultural issues.

Each party voted in a leader, but when it came time to vote for Judd’s opposition party, he could not cast a ballot because he was one of the leading candidates. “There was three or four people elected in our group, and I lost by two votes,” he said. “It was disappointing, but also like, ‘Whew, I don’t have to do that.’”

As one of the electees, Judd was still responsible for writing one- to two-minute introductions for his team’s arguments, including one to protect agricultural land from housing development.

“It was a bit of a nerves thing, because we gave our debates in the Senate,” he said, adding that he was proud his group won the debate.

“The whole of us did a vote at the end,” he said. “And my group won by a vote of 49 to 16.”

Judd said one of the coolest moments was something called the “Speak-up challenge,” a series of group discussions addressing questions that actual Canadian senators and CEOs put to the groups.

His group, which discussed the challenges of agribusiness and difficulties for youth getting started in agriculture, met with Senators Robert Black and Mary Robinson, who took attentive notes and even presented some of their ideas in the Senate that night.

“It was incredible to see how fast an impact we had on the nation,” Judd said. “We got our ideas into the decision-making room of Canada.”

Judd was the lone applicant to the event from Quebec, and said he felt a responsibility to go to bat for his province and his region. “I talked a lot about our tourism and our culture, because we have a really unique culture here in Quebec,” he said, adding that many were surprised to find out that he is an anglophone in Quebec.

The event concluded with a dance, where participants showed off the various dances taught in their programs, including line dancing from the prairie provinces and Irish-style dancing from the Maritimes.

“You see all the different parts of culture of all the different people from different provinces,” Judd said, adding that he got to show off his square dancing skills, something he learned was not known to many of his cohorts. “It’s not common outside Quebec.”

Overall, Judd said he was happy to have made friends and contacts across the country who have the same views of agriculture and belief in helping people.

“It’s a cool thing to meet like-minded people from all over the country, people I never would have had a chance of meeting if it wasn’t for that.”