I rise to voice my support at second reading for Bill S-209, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Regulation Adapting the Canada Elections Act for the Purposes of a Referendum regarding voting age.

I want to thank Senator Marilou McPhedran for this initiative, which was launched in cooperation with her precious youth council. One of the members of that council, a Franco-Saskatchewanian named Janie Moyen, believes that young Canadians are exploited in politics. Politicians speak on their behalf without listening to what they have to say. I also found Maisy Evans’s testimony to be very relevant. She is a 17-year-old member of the Welsh Youth Parliament who participated in that country’s campaign to include Welsh youth in Wales in the parliamentary process. For the first time in 2021, 16- and 17‑year-olds in Wales will be able to vote. According to Maisy Evans, it was not easy, but the arguments of young advocates prevailed. If a 16-year-old has to pay taxes, why should they not be allowed to vote so that they can have their say on how public funds are spent? A total of 59% of Welsh people surveyed supported the reform, which caused quite the debate in Wales.

In the October 2015 federal election, 57% of youth aged 18 to 24 voted. That’s much lower than the overall voter turnout of 68%. Nevertheless, it was cause for celebration, because the participation rate among 18- to 24-year-olds was significantly higher than in the previous election. The 2015 election was an exception to generally declining youth voter participation since the 1990s. The decline is troubling because elections are considered the main way people participate in politics.

What to do? The idea of allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote is seductive. Over the decades, the voting age has been gradually lowered, and suffrage has been expanded to renters, women, Indigenous individuals, people of colour and people belonging to certain religions in order to create a more representative democracy. At each stage, those in favour of the status quo cast doubt on a given group of citizens’ ability to vote.

Let’s recall arguments put forward in 1918 by Henri Bourassa, an editorial writer at Le Devoir, against women having the right to vote. I quote:

The main function of woman is and will remain — no matter what the suffragettes say or do or do not do — maternity, holy and fecund maternity, which truly makes woman the equal of man and, in many respects, his superior. Maternity necessarily precludes heavy burdens — military service, for example — and public service. If we insist on talking about “rights,” about “privileges,” I would say that maternity gives woman the “right” and “privilege” to not be a soldier or a voter.

That is what we are still doing for citizens who are 16 and 17 when we invoke their lack of maturity. I would be curious to measure the political maturity of the general public. Clearly age is certainly no guarantee of maturity. We can find all sorts of counter examples to illustrate that political maturity is not necessarily a trait reserved for older generations. Social media is bursting. If the right to vote was based on a competency requirement, other demographic groups might see their civic rights challenged.

At the age of 16, young people are presumed to be capable of making informed choices. They can work, pay taxes, become members of a party and make decisions about the medical care they wish to obtain. It is also the age of sexual consent. A 16‑year-old girl has the right to decide on her own if she will have an abortion, and she is also legally allowed to marry, as that is the minimum age set by the law. It seems to me that these are important responsibilities that indicate that a 16-year-old has reached a certain level of maturity.

Granting the right to vote to 16- and 17-year-olds could reduce political apathy among young people, according to Paul Howe, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick. He believes that today’s youth vote less than the same age group did in previous generations, possibly because we live in a more individualized society.

A European Union survey found a link between school attendance and voter turnout. Just 50% of individuals who leave the school system at the age of 15 vote, compared to 80% of those who leave school at the age of 20. Furthermore, people who vote for the first time will continue to do so, because they have developed the habit, compared to those who start voting later in life. Some experts suggest that the right to vote would raise political awareness and engagement among young people. These trends are interesting, since they suggest that 16- or 17‑year-olds who are still in school, living with their parents, will be more inclined to vote in an election than young people aged 18 to 24 who have moved out.

However, there is strong resistance to giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote. The fiercest opponents say that teens under the age of 18 have limited experience and are easier to influence, which makes them more likely to vote for people who are well known, such as celebrities. Young people would be more inclined to vote for extremist parties or for parties that oppose the system.

These arguments don’t hold water when we look at the situation in countries or communities where 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to vote. Research conducted in three German states during local elections showed that the new voters vote differently from their elders, without showing a consistent tendency to lean left or right. Young people aged 16 and 17 were not particularly inclined to vote for extreme left or extreme right parties in any of those states.

Many people recommend taking one step at a time and giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote first in a local or regional election because those issues affect voters more directly and are therefore easier for young people under the age of 18 to understand.

Let’s be frank. Fully 85% of countries give their citizens the right to vote at the age of 18, the age of majority, but six countries have lowered the voting age to 16, namely Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

Austria was the first European Union member country to launch such a reform in 2007. The reform was relatively uncontroversial, and four out of five parties supported extending the right to vote to younger people. Several studies have shown the impact of this reform to be generally positive, but it should be noted that the growing interest and high level of voter turnout among 16- to 17-year-olds depends on their education and social status. Still, there is reason for optimism, given that 16- and 17‑year-olds vote more than 18- to 20-year-olds and almost as much as older age groups. We should also note that there were major awareness campaigns.

I find the example of the Scottish referendum quite inspiring. They extended the right to vote to 16- and 17-year-olds specifically for that consultation in 2014, and it was a success. Some 75% of the 16- and 17-year-olds who had registered to vote indicated that they had voted, and 97% of those young voters indicated that they would vote again in future referendums or elections. Even more interestingly, 40% of 16- and 17-year-olds said they voted differently from their parents. They also consulted a wider variety of information sources than other age groups. It’s worth noting that this was an extraordinary consultation, because the Scots had to decide if they wanted to separate from the U.K.

People under 18 account for one quarter of the Canadian population, yet they have no political representation and very little say in matters that will affect their lives, from how we manage the environment to government spending priorities. In 2016, in response to a private member’s bill on the subject, the Canadian UNICEF Committee expressed support for giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote.

This is from UNICEF’s brief:

The establishment of a minimum age threshold in laws . . . is an approach generally intended to protect young people from decision-making responsibilities or from participating in rights considered to be beyond their capacity or to place them or others at risk. . . . some age thresholds are arbitrary, based on a presumption of capacity in adulthood and incapacity in childhood.

The standards and beliefs behind these prescriptions are not always evidence-based. In fact, UNICEF Canada found that there was no protective benefit to prohibiting 16- and 17-year-olds from voting. Yes, consuming alcohol or marijuana poses a real risk, which is why minors are prohibited from purchasing such substances, but no one is at risk if young people take part in the electoral process.

In closing, lowering the voting age to 16 is a democratic gesture and would increase the representativeness of the voting population. The Senate is a good place to hold this debate. I think we have very little to lose and everything to gain by giving the right to vote to 16- and 17-year-olds, who, after all, represent only 2.9% of the total number of eligible voters.

Thank you for your attention.

Would the senator accept a question?

Yes, of course.

I hope to speak to this bill later. In regards to the stats you shared with Scotland, you said that the 16- and 17-year-olds voted differently from the parents. Do you know if they voted similarly to, say, a teacher who was in the classroom, perhaps overseeing the study of political issues? I’m curious, only because students often spend a lot more time in the classroom than they do at home. That’s just a question that I have, a curiosity as to those stats.

In the studies I read, I didn’t see that the teachers had been asked that question, so we don’t know. Obviously, studies show a part of the reality, but I thought it was quite interesting that 40% of them didn’t follow their parents’ voting patterns. In general, among the arguments of the people who oppose letting the 16- and 17-year-olds vote, they tend to say that they are very influenceable and they will follow whoever is there near them. This could be the parents too.

I feel this was an interesting case. However, as you may know, this permission was given only for the referendum. We know that a referendum is a very special moment. Obviously, when I was reading this particular study, I thought about Quebec. It would have been interesting to see, during our two referenda, if we could have had the young voting in that case — considering that the young people were much more in favour of independence than the older ones — how it would have impacted on the results. That is not part of my speech, but I thought about that when I was reading about it.

I’m curious if the Quebec high schools also participate in the Student Vote program. With any election that is happening in British Columbia, for instance, a parallel election is held in the schools. Often the results are different than what happens in the actual election. This, too, is interesting. Does Quebec also participate in such programs? That’s an excellent way to engage young people to be ready to vote when they become of age.

Unfortunately, I would have to say that civil education in Quebec is not very well developed. We don’t have that program, which is a great program. We have the circle of young parliamentarians of Québec, where young people go to the Parliament, but we don’t have such an extensive program of voting in schools at the same time that they do at the provincial level.

A few schools may do mock voting, but it’s not extensive.

Senator Martin, there are 25 seconds left if you have more questions.

Senator Miville-Dechêne, are you asking for another five minutes?

No, I don’t want to hold up the proceedings.

Thank you.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to you on Bill S-209, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act for the purposes of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.

I want to commend Senator McPhedran for her work on ensuring that the voices of young Canadians will have a say in our democracy. I welcome her efforts in this direction.

I want to start with history because the history of who gets to vote in Canada has never been set in stone. It has always evolved and will likely continue to do so. In 1885, as we have heard a number of times, only male property-owning British subjects aged 21 and older were eligible to vote. Today, all Canadian citizens aged 18 or older, regardless of gender, income, property ownership or ethnic origin, have the right to vote.

However, every time voter eligibility has evolved, objections have been raised. Senator Miville-Dechêne pointed out some of the objections that were raised in my research. I came across what happened in 1918 when women were enfranchised. Senator Hewitt Bostock argued that:

. . . women will be put in the position of receiving something that they do not appreciate, and consequently very probably they will not exercise their right to vote.

I’m sure many women cringe when they read that point of view.

Similarly, I have heard many arguments against lowering the voting age to 16, so instead of telling you the virtues associated with the idea, let me try to deal with the objections.

The first objection that people put forward is that young people are just too young to deal with complex matters such as voting. Plus, they are so young that we cannot reasonably expect them to make informed choices. In addition, their brains are not sufficiently developed at 16 to enable them to make logical choices. What would be the point, in any case, since young people would only vote the way their parents tell them to? In other words, here is the basket of objections: They are too young. They are too immature. They are too impressionable. They are too inexperienced to be granted that most valuable right of citizens — the ability to cast your vote.

Instead of just giving you my opinion, let me grasp for evidence from jurisdictions that have lowered the voting age. In 2007, Austria enfranchised those aged 16 and older. There is a 13-year body of evidence to draw from. The data tells us that the turnout among 16 and 17-year-old Austrian voters have been substantially higher than the turnout among 18 to 20-year-old voters and not substantially lower than the overall turnout rate. Evidently, young people will vote if they are given the opportunity.

Let’s deal with the objection related to immaturity: Young people cannot be entrusted with the vote because they will make uninformed choices. If given the vote, they may cast their vote for the sake of voting, without understanding the implications of the choices they are making. They don’t have enough political knowledge, they are not able to tune into the political discourse of the day, et cetera.

Colleagues, as an aside, if this holds true for young people, I would submit it holds true for many adults as well.

But, once again, I look to countries that have enfranchised youth to determine if this argument holds water. A study conducted in Austria before the 2009 European Parliament election showed that young people voted based on their political preferences just as much as older voters did. They were not ignorant of the context; quite the opposite. They had a distinct political preference, which they exercised through their vote.

Then there is the argument that adolescent brains cannot manage the logical processes required for voting. However, according to neuroscientists, in scenarios where tasks are mainly cognitive, adolescents show competence levels similar to those of adults. This means that when the level of stress is low and there is time to evaluate different choices, young people are indeed able to make thoughtful decisions. Because voting is an activity for which you don’t just vote on the go — you have time to think about it — they are able to make reasonable decisions, just as much as adult voters.

Finally, to the point of parental influence, what is the point of allowing young people to vote, people ask, since they will only vote the way their parents tell them to. I don’t know about your kids, colleagues, but in my family, the opposite is almost always true. Kids have perspectives, they have priorities, they have opinions and they don’t hesitate to tell adults, especially parents, what is wrong with our world.

As Senator Miville-Dechêne pointed out, prior to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, over 40% of those under 18 years of age indicated a different voting intention to that of their parents. Clearly, young people have minds of their own.

Plus, the influence does not just go one way; it goes both ways. Young people can and do affect their parents’ civic engagement and attitudes as well. My children have certainly influenced me about global warming and climate change.

There are many reasons to look seriously at this proposal. It will have a positive impact on a lateral participation in the long run, because people under 18 are likely to still be in school and live with their families — two factors that have been shown to encourage turnout. I believe that permitting young people to vote will allow them to learn to vote in a more sheltered environment. In the long term, this higher level of participation at a young age may become a good, lifelong habit they can exercise.

But the most important reason for enfranchising young people is that the future is theirs. We make decisions here in this chamber that have significant impacts on their lives: regarding cannabis, the labelling of food, assisted dying, what they buy, whether products have slave labour in their supply chains, the impacts of the pandemic on their lives and climate change.

A common complaint I hear from young people is that the older political elites control their future. Giving them the right to vote at this age will ensure that we hear their views and take them seriously.

I don’t want to make the argument for lowering the voting age without linking it to civic education; you can’t do one without the other. For example, in Austria, the lowering of the voting age was accompanied by awareness-raising campaigns and enhancing the status of civic and citizenship education in schools. In terms of citizenship education, all provinces and territories include the subject area in their curriculums. There are programs, of course, as Senator Martin has pointed out, like youth vote, et cetera, that go into schools and raise awareness. But I would like to see more emphasis given in mandatory school curriculums in Canada.

Colleagues, I will close my short speech with a final pitch. Young people will inherit the results of the decisions we make. It’s time to give them a chance to shape their future and ours at the polls. This is an important issue. I would urge the Senate to send this bill to committee for further scrutiny. Thank you very much.

Senator Martin, do you have a question?

I have a question for Senator Omidvar.

Senator Omidvar, would you answer a question?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

I agree that civic education will be very important for students. Do you also think that financial literacy and teaching students basic economic principles and understanding the economic impact of decisions — those things are also important — should also be a focus along with some of these other programs?

Senator Martin, it is clear that you and I were both teachers in our past. We both value education that is in keeping with the times. I can’t disagree with your proposal that financial literacy is core to helping young people mature. There should be an aspect of citizenship education that lays out the basics of taxation, et cetera, so kids understand this important feature.

But I think the real challenge is in persuading provincial school systems to expand the time allocated to civic and citizenship education. It’s highly variable across the country, and I believe this is a very important matter for scrutiny in committee.