By Keri O’Meara
Nineteen-year-old Caitlin Gagnon says she can’t relate to politicians.
“I can see through them, I don’t think they are honest,” she says frankly.
Gagnon finished high school last June and now works in a Centretown hair salon. She says she hasn’t really thought about voting on Jan. 23.
According to Elections Canada, Gagnon’s political apathy is the norm for those in the 18-25 age group.
In the 2000 election only 32 per cent of youth voted. By comparison, more than 80 per cent of voters over age 58 showed up at the polls.
One of the reasons so few young Canadians vote is that they don’t feel like politicians are talking about issues important to them, says political writer Aaron Freeman.
Freeman says Elections Canada is continuing its effort to get youth out to the polls but says “governments are doing little except paid lip service.”
“You can put Paul Martin on Much Music but it’s still not effective because there is no way to relate to him other than the fact that he is on Much Music,” says Alex Metz, 16, a student at Lisgar Collegiate Institute High School.
A study produced by Elections Canada in 2003 on voting participation among young people indicates that the decline in youth voter turnout is a multi-faceted problem. The study says political cynicism among youth, lack of political knowledge, administrative and personal problems and lack of contact with candidates add to the problem.
Metz says many young people do not actively seek out information about the political process and generally feel disengaged from politicians and the government.
“The problem is that they have no reason to vote, there is nothing that appeals to them in civic duty,” he says.
Samantha Nelson, 19, says it’s important to vote, but she doesn’t.
“I don’t know who to vote for so I am not going to vote, I don’t research it. I just leave it up to everyone else,” she says.
Ilona Dougherty is the cofounder of Apathy is Boring, a national organization which attempts to “connect the dots” for youth. She says youth voter turnout has always been lower than other groups but recent statistics show it’s at an all time low. She says Canada is facing a democratic crisis since people who don’t vote when they are 18 are less likely to vote when they are older.
Paul Turner, a politics teacher at Lisgar, says he doesn’t think kids lack a sense of civic duty. He says they are volunteering and getting involved in other ways besides voting.
“Kids interested in social justice issues … seem to have a heightened sense of awareness of the conditions of the people around them and improving those conditions,” he says.
But Carleton University political science professor Jon Pammett says it’s a myth that youth who don’t vote display their civic duty in other ways. He says those who are involved are the ones who vote.
The only course in Ontario that teaches high school students about Canada’s political process is a civics course that’s mandatory for Grade 10 students. Turner teaches his students about Canadian politics, even though the curriculum is geared towards international issues.