OHSCA 1st Anniversary President's Address

Just over 1 year ago, I was a young person that was interested in politics that wanted to make a change. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, but when I created another conservative youth group with some peers, I thought I had found it. It started off well, but it started going in a direction I didn’t like, so I took my leave. After a short while, I realized what I was looking for, what was missing in our conservative political landscape, a group for 14-18 year olds.

That was how OHSCA was born. I started putting together a name, an idea and what I wanted to accomplish. I put many hours into it, I even remember sitting in my math class throwing down some ideas in a simple document, some of which I still look at today when running the group. When I was ready, I started to reach out to some other conservative high schoolers I had met before, and then we started advertising. From the beginning, OHSCA has been a team effort, and to this day it remains so.

After a bit of advertising and reaching out, I was honoured to launch OHSCA on October 5th, 2020, one year ago today. When I launched OHSCA, I never thought it would become as big as it has today, at least not as fast. We recruited members, we had discussions, and we grew as a team. We became united together as a team that really all shared some ideas, and shared the fact that we are all high school conservatives, and that it is hard to be that today.

We grew, slow but steadily, and I wouldn’t really say that has changed. What has changed however, is the outreach we have had. We have created so much content as a team, and more will be coming with today’s relaunch. Our biggest content, however, has been OHSCA Interviews. In January of 2021, myself and then Director of Media Relations, Jaireet Chahal were talking about what we could do as a group next. We eventually came up with an idea of interviewing Conservative Party of Canada candidates for the possible upcoming election (it did come!). I reached out to some candidates, and some of them agreed, so we did the show.

The show has been a blast. It has been so good, I have enjoyed hosting it over the past months, and I am so happy to bring that back soon. We reached out to so many prominent conservatives such as former CPC Leader Andrew Scheer, CPC Deputy Leader Candice Bergen, former cabinet ministers, current provincial ministers and figures, and many new voices. We have created these connections with so many people, and the best thing of all is that more adults, politicians, political figures, and most importantly, young people have been introduced to our movement.

This past year has been a lot of fun, we have been through a lot together as a team getting this off the ground and doing so many things. I want to thank Vice President Jaireet Chahal for his help since the beginning and for his time. I want to thank Jack Murphy, Director of Media Relations for all his dedicated work and time creating so many of our graphics used throughout the group, our activities, and our content.

And to the rest of the team, thank you. You have dedicated so much of your time to our group over the past days, weeks, and months. Whether you wrote articles, created social media content, or even just submitted questions to our interview guests, you have made a difference. For that I really want to thank you, our group is where it is today because you dedicated your time to it.

So that is all I have to say for this reflection. We have done so much over the past year, and we have made an impact, that I know for a fact! In the grand scheme of things, a year is not a very long time, and we have achieved so much in just one year. Imagine the things we can achieve in the years to come! So let’s look ahead, and turn to this new chapter of OHSCA.

Author: Vincenzo Calla
Date: October 5, 2021