Canada’s Youngest Mayor Has a Message for Youth Today

Clayton Smith, 19, returned to his parents’ house after being sworn in as mayor of a central Alberta hamlet in October 1995. “I guess you can refer to me as ‘your worship’ now,” Mr. Smith joked with his father. “Not while you’re living in my basement,” his father quipped back. But in all seriousness, his parents were proud—his mother wrote eagerly to her family back in the Philippines to let them know they now had a mayor in the family. Mr. Smith was the youngest mayor ever elected in Canada, and he still holds that record almost 30 years later. So what qualities did this kid living in his parents’ basement have that landed him the role of mayor for New Norway, Alberta?...