Chris Erl stands in Carpenter Park, where he will be holding a community event Dec. 18 to promote his bid to be a finalist on CBC's Canada's Next Great Prime Minister show. The 18-year-old chose the park because he has seen the green space around it dwindle over the years, highlighting a plank in his platform, that urban sprawl must be contained.

If Chris Erl was running the joint, we wouldn't have sat through the current boondoggle in Ottawa. If the 18-year-old McMaster student was prime minister, we never would have gotten into this situation.

“It’s almost as if the Conservatives right now are acting like they have a majority,” says Mr. Erl, who is in the running for a spot CBC’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister.

The reforms Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives tried to push through — barring civil servants from striking for the next two years and cutting public funding for political parties — harkens back to what Naomi Klein outlined in her book, Shock Doctrine.

The Conservatives are trying to push through these unpopular reforms while the public and their parliamentary opposition are dealing with wars or economic upheaval in the world.

And that isn’t the right thing to do at this moment, says the political science and sociology student.

“If I was in control of the budget right now I would have done things really differently,” says Mr. Erl, a Mountain resident for 17 of his 18 years.

“I would have immediately started the stimulus money, I would have broken it down to the root problems of the consumer culture that we are in and the outsourcing of jobs and how we aren't connecting all the problems.”

The current drama in Ottawa is exciting to watch, but it just highlights the failure of the current system, says Mr. Erl. The problem could have been avoided altogether with a new voting system. While Ontario voters last year rejected the idea of electoral reform, Mr. Erl says the mixed-member proportional system wasn't the right approach.

He suggests open party list proportional representation is a better way — similar to mixed member, but with the chance for voters to actually choose who gets to fill the at-large seats.

Under the new system, the five ridings of Hamilton might become one regional one, but with five representatives.

“It would in some people’s eyes decrease representation, but if you look at it, it might actually increase it because here in Hamilton Mountain we elected Chris Charlton, but there was a significant portion of the population that voted for Terry Anderson, the Conservative. Under this system, the Conservatives might actually pick up seats," he says. “And although Terry Anderson might not get elected, one Conservative would be. So that means all the people who voted Conservative would have a voice in the government from Hamilton.”

With that system in place during October's federal election, the Green Party and New Democrats would have received more members.

“But it would also give more representation to urban Conservatives, Liberals in Alberta, things like that. It would have tweaked the system minutely, but the problem with this system is that is that it is very hard to get a majority.”

The system would necessitate the need for coalitions, but they would happen from the outset, says Mr. Erl. “That would actually help break some of the deadlocks we get into and work towards a bit of non-partisanship.”

Right now, Mr. Erl is one of about 200 applicants — McMaster students Leo Johnson, a semi-finalist from last year’s contest, and Shilo Davis are also in the competition — vying to be one of the four finalists who will appear on Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister.

He says his interest in politics was sparked on his Grade 8 trip to Ottawa when a tour guide noted they were old enough to join political parties and get involved in the process.

“I didn’t know about that, so I started researching and became more and more politically involved in students council and things like that.”

Today, Mr. Erl, a St. Thomas More grad, is working with McMaster New Democrats and is on the executive of the Mountain riding NDP. He went door to door with Chris Charlton supporters in last campaign, further whetting his appetite for elected office.

But it’s not for glory, he says. We often forget how much work is done within the constituency to help people.

“That's why I like municipal politics,” he says. “The things that municipal politicians do, they're right on your curb. It’s the garbage collection, it's the park down the street, the bylaws that influence your life on an everyday, right-close-to-your-life basis.”

Expect to see him on the ballot for Ward 8 in the 2010 municipal election.

“It’s almost for certain.”

But as far as a run for prime minister in 20 years? As a New Democrat he may not win.

“That would make it very hard to become prime minister,” he admits with a laugh.

In the meantime, there are many problems to be fixed on a local level, he says, and they have to be addressed before the larger issues are solved in the provincial or federal level.

That’s his platform in the TV show contest. “Before we tackle all these problems, we need

to get into the communities and we need to fix the problems that are caused by sprawl, that are caused by the emptying out of our downtown cores, the environmental problems, as well, that are caused by this way of life,” Mr. Erl says.

“I think we need to focus on those problems and then once we’ve made a significant dent in that — and it may take 100 years — then when we address those problems on a federal level, we'll actually get results and we'll actually fix those problems.”

As part of his campaign to get on Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, contestants are required to perform a number of tasks, including holding a community event. He’ll do his the afternoon of Dec. 18 at Carpenter Park, south of Rymal Road on Upper Paradise, to highlight his platform.

“We’re going to be stressing the fact that we need to come together as a community more, and we need to celebrate more,” Mr. Erl says. “Even if there is no reason, we need to celebrate more because that brings people together.”

With a new subdivision going up in the background, it also highlights part of his platform.

“It’s the perfect venue showing that urban sprawl is really unattractive, as well. It’s destroying our farmland, it’s destroying our environment and it’s almost making the place unsafe for kids, because there are trucks running back and forth down the streets.”

To vote for Mr. Erl, go to cbc.ca/nextprimeminister . The show will air March 19.