THUNDER BAY -- As much as Thunder Bay-Superior North elected Patty Hajdu on her record and her party's platform, her victory was a generational changing of the guard.
Hajdu's campaign director was only 21 years old. Her volunteer coordinator was 18. The campaign swelled with social media and when the youth were put in positions beyond planting signs and knocking on doors, they brought their networks with them.
"When you empower the youth to lead, they actually do a phenomenal job," Hajdu said.
"I had a number of young people who were clearly emerging as leaders and I decided we were going to actually move into this formal youth leadership that would empower them to take the lead."
Campaign director Matt Pascuzzo was shopping around for a political party to call his own around the same time Hajdu was deciding which banner she would carry into Monday's election. The third year political science student observed how far Hajdu had come without politics when he was reporting on City Council for a local radio station.
"I saw (Hajdu) go to city council time and time again and they would tell her, 'it's not our problem. It's the federal government's problem,'" he said.
"So sitting there on that side, I saw she had no help at all."
Pascuzzo couldn't spark interest in a Young Liberals club at Lakehead University but when Hajdu won the Liberal nomination, she brought Pascuzzo into the fold and a youth movement developed within the riding association.
Where Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was being attacked on the national platform for lacking experience, Pascuzzo was galvanized by what he saw as ageism in the political sphere that flowed from the attack ads through to the electorate.
"It doesn't matter how old you are. I've seen over the course of this campaign. I'm standing at the door and there's someone talking to me saying, 'Trudeau is too young. He can't do anything.' I'm standing there, I'm 21 years old and I'm directing a political campaign," he said.
"That's how our campaign was. It was grassroots. Everybody was new and everybody helped out wherever they could."
Megan Wyant grew up in a Liberal household but when she became old enough to vote, she made her own decision to put her values behind the party. She was placed in charge of volunteers and she knocked on doors nearly every day. As Wyant and her friends shared their experiences on Facebook, she brought first-time voters to the Liberals.
"I got a lot of 'are you even old enough to vote?' and that kind of motivates me because the people don't expect the youth to get out there but when they see it, as we've seen tonight, you get change," she said.
"I have friends of my own who had no idea anything about politics until I started volunteering with this. Some of them are here tonight celebrating because they got so involved and they love it so much."
At 19 years old, Hajdu's younger son Sam Wilson-Hajdu was a first-time voter, himself.
"She needs the youth. She needs to show the youth are cared for and they're important," he said.
"I'm very proud of my mother."
