Alberta UCP Youth Dance for ages 14-25

A United Conservative Party (UCP) youth dance organized by the constituency of Lacombe-Ponoka is causing backlash online over the age difference between the planned participants.

The UCP Lacombe-Ponoka Constituency Association Youth Spring Dance and Social on June 8 in Clive Village is open to participants between the ages of 14 and 25.

Association first shared a post about dancing on the Facebook page. This post only allows comments from people who follow the page, with most of the negative reaction – many sharing feelings of discomfort – coming from users sharing the post on their personal pages.

The post received more backlash online when an RCMP sergeant in Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) shared a screenshot of the Facebook page with his personal X account. Sergeant. Kerry Shima has nearly 300,000 views in less than 24 hours.

“Here's the problem,” Shima's post reads. “1) 25 year olds are NOT young people, and 2) who wanted to see 14 and 25 year olds dance together and who planned this?”

“3) The ICE department is busy with cases and the last thing my teams need is a sanctioned dance that encourages adults to mingle with teenagers.”

Several commenters believed that the youth dance should be discouraged and that UCP should not be associated with such an event.

Others say the rural population — more than 700 people live in Cleve — makes the age range suitable.

According to the Department of Justice, a young person is anyone between childhood and adulthood, Canada officially recognizes an adult as someone over 18 years of age.

The term “youth” is used to refer to youth criminal justice legislation such as the Juvenile Offenders Act, the Young Offenders Act and the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“In these cases, 'youth' is defined as a person under 18 at the time of the criminal offence. Since 2003, any reference to the youth criminal justice system will identify young people between the ages of 12 and 17.

CityNews contacted Clive and the mayor of the UCP Lacombe-Ponoka constituency, but did not immediately receive a response.

RCMP Cpl. Matthew Howell told CityNews that no offenses have been committed and no concerns have been raised with the RCMP at this time.

However, he added that the RCMP will be contacting event organizers to discuss current public issues.