Democracy is one of our nation’s most cherished values. And yet, over the past few years, there has been a steady decline in Canadian electoral participation. During the federal elections in 2004, only 61% of Canada came to the ballot box, and the electoral participation number dropped to 58.8% in the 2008 federal elections. Many academics have cited the growing number of apathetic young voters as one of the factors that have induced the steady decline in voter turnout. When it comes to young voters, they are the ones who express the least interest in politics, possess a lack of political knowledge and seem to avoid the ballot box more than any other group in the eligible electorate. So what does this all mean? Will young voters outgrow their political apathy and become more aware as they grow older and more attuned to their political and social surroundings? Or does this mean we have raised a generation of cynics who will not only leave their ballot empty but allow our precious democracy to decline until it morphs into a light form of, say, an oligarchy as forwarded by one professor, Loic Blondiaux, his article ‘Les invisibles de la représentation’ published in Le Monde.
When taking a glimpse at the voter turnout results in previous Canadian federal elections and referendums, it is evident that electoral participation is on the decline. The 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s saw roughly 65%-75% of the electorate would come out and vote (Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums, 1867-2008 , 2010)[1] . The last highest voter turnout for a Canadian federal election was in 1988, where 75.3% of the electorate crossed an ‘X’ on their ballot. The 1988 elections aroused an increase in voter turnout because the campaigns were mostly concentrated on a single hot topic issue: the fair trade agreement with the United States. It is blatantly clear that to arouse a greater voter turnout, parties need to address the real issues that can incite all Canadians to come out and vote. In the last federal election, Statistics Canada reported that 7.5 million eligible voters decided not to cast a ballot. According to journalist Meagan Fitzpatrick, almost a third of abstaining voters claimed to be too uninterested by the elections to be bothered to go out and vote on May 2nd 2011. Young voters “were more likely to say they didn't vote because it didn't interest them” than their older counterparts (Fitzpatrick, 2011,p.1).
Are politicians failing to tackle issues than younger voters hold dear? Is the political elite out of touch with youth and the changing demographics of Canadian society? What is it about politics that seems to deter youth instead of inviting them to learn more and become more involved? Marion Ménard cites four contributing factors concerning the decline in electoral participation among the young electorate. The first factor is the lack of connection between youth and the issues debated and brought forward in political platforms. However, youth should feel connected to many issues discussed in the political arena as they do affect their lives. Health care should be an issue of interest, as well as the funding of post-secondary education (which was an important pillar of the Liberal party’s platform in the 2011 election). Secondly, Ménard finds that there is a lack of political knowledge, which does explain the inability to connect with political issues. Henry Milner places youth who have a lack of political knowledge into the category of “Political drop out” whereas young voters who abstain from voting for political and rebellious reasons are defined as “Political protestors” The former group is of “special concern , because they constitute a growing group among young people”( Milner, 2005). Henry Milner “established a cause and effect relationship between the level of political knowledge and youth electoral participation” (Menard, 2010, p.2) Thirdly, young voters, much like older voters, are less likely to vote if they possess a lack of trust in the political system because many of them “doubt that voting every four years can truly influence the decision-making process” (Menard, 2010, p.5). The last factor cited by Menard is the impact of the media on the masses, notably youth. Though the media receives the blame for the increasingly cynical population, Menard shows that the media is very much Janus-faced: it is the media that helps educate the masses on the different aspects, whether good, bad or neutral, of the political and social scene. However, Milner “find[s] an extremely strong negative relationship at the aggregate level between television watching (especially commercial television) and political knowledge, and a positive relationship between newspaper-reading and political knowledge” (Milner, 2005, p.11). In addition to all these factors, Henry Milner adds a new dimension as to why young Canadians are avoiding the polls. When comparing youth voter turnout with other countries, countries with a proportional representation system (PR), such as Sweden and Germany, fare better than countries that are governed by first past the post electoral systems (FPTP). It seems clear that the PR system “facilitates access to representation in Parliament for small parties by making the proportion of seats correspond to the proportion of votes” (Milner, 2005, p.9). Young voters are thus more likely to participate in the electoral process if the parties in which they bestow their support are able to attain seats in Parliament and represent the marginalized groups.
Acknowledging the cited factors, it is imperative that we find and implement viable solutions to tackle the heart of the problem. Henry Milner suggests taking a look at our education system and reforming it to add more school hours dedicated to the study of politics. Furthermore, Milner hints that we should follow the Swedish example: young Swedes take civic courses around the age of 18 and “are poised to apply the course information concretely as new voters” (Milner, 2005, p.13). Milner and Menard both agree that involving students before they are of voting age is also an effective way to introduce them to the democratic tradition. Since 2004, Elections Canada has added to its mandates the responsibility of taking the necessary steps to encourage youth electoral participation. Advertising campaigns, establishing vote stations on university campuses, and reaching out to young Canadians via the internet and social media are some initiatives taken by Elections Canada. However, Menard warns that Technology should not be ‘regarded as a panacea for increasing youth electoral engagement’ ( Menard,2010,p.4) given the fact not all young Canadians are connected to the Web and not all youth who are online are keen on spending time on political or news websites. However, Elections Canada has initiated a program to reach out to youth under the age of 18.
While reforming the educational system and framework for civics courses might be the most viable solution to resolve the lack of political knowledge among youth, Menard brings forth another very promising suggestion: media outreach. Elections Canada is about to launch an advertising campaign and has already created a website dedicated to youth who are under the age of 18. According to Menard, the site includes ‘learning tools, hyperlinks and various interactive instructional activities’ (Menard, 2010, p.5).
Both Menard and Milner brought up a solution that has been in the back of some people’s minds for a few years: lowering the voter age to increase participation among youth voters. However, lowering the voter age would only solve an artificial problem (increasing numbers to improve a statistic) instead of tackling the real issue at stake which is essentially, ignorance. Milner refutes this idea by stating “if young people don’t vote at 18, they are hardly likely to vote at 16” (Milner, 2005, p.15).However, Milner does not reject the idea of launching a pilot project where the voter age could be temporarily lowered from 18 to 16 to better understand the potential consequences. Establishing a law that requires that every Canadian citizen (eligible to vote, of course) to vote in a federal election is another solution that was discussed by Menard and Milner. Milner closes by reiterating three recommendations to tackle the trend of declining electoral participation among youth: we need to take a look at political institutional reforms; reinforce the teaching and acquisition of functional literacy as well stressing to youth (through the means civic education) to make informed choices among political options; and lowering the voter age.
While it is important for young Canadians to be informed, be able to make critical choices and to feel the duty to vote when federal, provincial and municipal elections are around the corner, I do not recommend lowering the voting age as Henry Milner has suggested. Generally speaking, 16 year olds are still naïve, very impressionable, still ignorant to many realities and are less likely to make critical and informed choices. Anecdotally this is a fair assumption. However, I firmly support reinforcing and reforming civic education in the provincial curriculum, allowing politics and current socioeconomic issues to be studied more in depth in high school. Only a better education, and not social engineering such as mandatory voting or lowering the voting age, can lower the number of political dropouts and reverse the trend of low voter turnout among youth. Furthermore, this question still resonates in my mind: given the fact that electoral participation is not the only form of political participation, does a low voter turnout rate really matter? Does a statistic imply a decline in democracy? Or does this indicate that the definition of democracy is shifting from an era where voting symbolized the democratic tradition to an era where lobby groups, non-formal acts of political participation, volunteering and writing letters/petitions are the new symbols of the nation’s voice and orientation.
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