Applicant #9: Jordan Newell

Jordan Newell is a 22-year-old from Springfield.

Jordan's video application:

Jordan's current situation:

I work at a call centre 40hrs a week and I spend my spare time working towards a University diploma through distance learning courses. These courses with work can be time consuming and I appreciate weekends as a chance to catch up on school work. I still manage to attend meetings and assist in fund-raising functions for community groups and am a regular liaison at conferences for these groups. Despite the heavy workload I work towards improving my performance in the 10km running race and 21.1km. This summer I'll be competing in a race over an 8 day period with 7 stages. In total I'll be running 160km and the training is the toughest part of every day. I do it all now because I don't want to look back and wish I started earlier at my career or at running. I don't want to know what I could have done. I want to look back and know I put everything I had into each of these accomplishments. Work, school, running, and community service. The y each have their own respective payoffs and I couldn't think of a single one I'd want to give up.

Jordan's blog post:

Political issues are reaching a breaking point. My generation of Canadians will need to take risks and invest in areas invest heavily in infrastructure along the North-west Passage. New ports will be built, rail links required and oil pipelines built as the exploration of oil in the Arctic Ocean is pursued. The melting of ice sheets off Greenland will reshape the landscape of the midwest and Quebec as they take on higher volumes of water leading to greater opportunities in hydroelectric development to power the US.

Setting business ideas aside, business leaders will be called upon when our generation tackles the health care spending habits. Health care has money being pumped into it at an increasing rate, without a national strategy to cut costs and make better use of existing funds. Canadians are shy to change this system due to a misplaced fear that the ever increasing costs of health care in the US will happen here. We can't be shy, we need to take action and the younger generation recognizes this. Living a healthier lifestyle will become more normal as a tax credit is to be introduced to Canadians with gym memberships in 2015. However our generation will take this even further. We will tackle issues such as our excessively high sodium intake where we can save over a billion dollars in health care costs that are better spent on our front line workers, doctors and nurses. A healthy lifestyle for Canadians is essential in protecting our free healthcare system.

A healthy lifestyle can't be completed if we do not overhaul the basics of our transportation systems. In London, people are afraid to go for a bike ride unless they break the law and bike on the sidewalk. As a result, they contribute to the congestion problem and jump in their cars for the four block drive to get milk. With one major overhaul on the layout of roads and bike paths, taking cars off the road will lessen maintenance costs and potentially lead to a relief on the taxes in our gasoline. Finally, The Windsor-Toronto-Montreal corridor needs a high speed rail link to ease congestion and encourage alternative transportation. High speed trains are increasing in popularity all around the world, yet a high speed corridor connecting the economic juggernauts of Toronto and Montreal hasn't been built. Two cities which can merge their stock exchange have been told they're not worth the investment in transportation.

With economic opportunities like this, my generation will require patience and mastery in organization. Building a new frontier in the North, tightening our belts on fast food, and enabling a high-speed commute, are the final links in emerging as an economic leader in the world.

Jordan