Bill to Amend the Canada Elections Act and the Regulation Adapting the Canada Elections Act for the Purposes of a Referendum (voting age)

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to 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 (voting age).

This bill seeks to lower the federal voting age from 18 to 16. For my colleagues who may not be aware, youth engagement and outreach have always been a significant part of my life and I have always viewed my role as a legislator as an extension of community service, simply on a national scale.

It was my community involvement at a young age that piqued my interest in affecting positive change and working to make the lives of Canadians better, whether they are at-risk workers, students across the country, individuals struggling with mental health or any other Canadian. In my early 20s, I became a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, which is an organization that provided mentorship to over 41,000 Canadian youth this past year. In fact, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Newfoundland and Labrador was one of the community-minded organizations I awarded a Senate sesquicentennial medal for their important and often unrecognized work.

One of the children I mentored was a boy whose father was not around for him anymore. This was before I had children of my own and I felt it rewarding to be able to help foster joy, learning and growth in his life. We spent time playing sports, going to movies and talking about school, life and future. It was an experience I’ve carried throughout my life, as it demonstrated in a real, honest and tangible way, the kind of impact that can be created when you look outside of yourself and towards your communities and when you invest time, energy and care into our young people, who are the future of this great country.

This served as one of the many opportunities I’ve had to connect with youth to hear about their goals, interests and experiences and about their visions for Canada’s future. They are enthusiastic, optimistic and inventive. And I think I gained more from them than they have from me.

I very much enjoyed my youth outreach experiences with the Senate’s SENgage program. I am proud we run such a meaningful program that invites students to be active participants in the work we are doing here in the Senate. I’ve spoken with high school students in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and indeed across Canada.

I have also had the opportunity to present at and be involved in the first-ever model Senate, which took place in January 2020, along with Senator Martin, Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Pate. The students debated legislation, learned parliamentary procedure and investigated issues affecting our country. They did a great job. I remember being inspired at the thought that these current students and many others would soon be the ones debating real legislation, making key decisions and guiding our country through future challenges. I had the same feeling when I was involved in the Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament over the years, back at the province’s House of Assembly. This thought and feeling of inspiration recur at each interaction I have with our future leaders.

These are just a few of the many opportunities that are currently available to our youth to get involved in Canada’s political landscape. Now, colleagues, as you know, I’m critic of Bill S-209, and there’s no way I’m going to stand here and say people under the age of 18 are incapable of making sound and well-informed decisions on who their political leaders should be, or that they shouldn’t be part of Canada’s political process.

In fact, in many ways they already are. For those who feel a partisan connection, Canadians as young as 14 can gain membership in one of our political parties. Regardless of the political party, this is a rewarding opportunity for young people. This provides an outlet to have their voices heard in shaping policy, to be involved in leadership races, to attend information sessions and events, and to see if the values and goals of that party align with theirs. It is a great way to test the waters of supporting a party to see how it fits. If the party that a 14- or 15-year-old chooses to join doesn’t feel quite right, that provides ample opportunity to find one that is a good fit before eventually casting their first ballot.

There are also other partisan and non-partisan ways for Canadian youth to get politically involved prior to voting. They can join or start a school political club, help with local campaigns, sign petitions, attend public meetings of elected officials, and volunteer within the political process as an election official or a poll worker.

Two of my sons joined the Conservative Party of Canada when they turned 14. I was pleased about that. My first political involvement was in the early 1970s. I was 12 years old and I stuffed envelopes and put them in people’s mailboxes in what was then known as St. John’s West. One excellent tool that many Canadians may not be aware of is the Register of Future Electors. It was created in April 2019 and is an optional registry that Canadians aged 14 to 17 can join. Then, once future electors become eligible electors, when they turn 18, they are added to the National Register of Electors.

This Register of Future Electors can be used as a way for youth to make an informal commitment to themselves that they will vote once they become eligible. We should encourage this and also streamline the process for inclusion in this registry so that it is accessible to more Canadian youth.

We should focus on encouraging youth involvement in these opportunities and on creating more. According to Statistics Canada, “Younger people were more likely than older people to participate in non-electoral civic and political activities.” So we should do everything we can to promote and support their involvement.

Our young people enjoy this type of involvement. It allows them to learn about the political system prior to voting in their first election. It creates opportunities to develop political views and beliefs that may be different from their parents and friends and unique to them, and it encourages them to dig deep and consider some important questions. There’s no minimum age to get involved in non-electoral civic and political activities.

It’s true, as some of my honourable colleagues have also stated, that voting rates among Canada’s youngest are the lowest in Canada. This is a significant problem because in order to have a democracy that is truly representing the electorate, members of the electorate must make their voices heard through casting their ballots. Research from the Library of Parliament states that:

From 1980 to 2015, Canada’s youngest voters turned out for federal general elections in numbers well below the turnout rate for all other demographic groups. Although youth voter turnout was significantly higher for the 42nd general election in 2015 than in previous years, it was still below the overall voter participation rate. This disengagement by Canadian young people from participation in the electoral process has acted as a significant downward drag on overall turnout figures.

By looking at voter turnout by demographic over time, we can see some troubling trends in the data. Between the federal elections of 1984 and 2000, voter turnout rates for 18- to 29‑year-olds declined sharply, according to the Library of Parliament. The turnout rate for the 18- to 24-age cohort fell by approximately 20 percentage points. This decrease has not corrected itself.

While I agree this is a problem in our democracy, I disagree with this proposed solution. In fact, I don’t see how it could be considered a solution. By lowering the voting age to 16, yes, the sheer number of young Canadians voting may increase. What would that do to help the actual turnout rates? We would simply be expanding the size of the electorate instead of working to increase voter turnout among the young people currently in our electorate.

Senator McPhedran, the sponsor of this bill, stated in her second reading speech that lowering the voting age could help to “ . . . produce habits of long-term civic engagement.” However, I argue that we should be working to develop these habits at an even younger age through civic engagement activities that I’ve mentioned and through creating more of these opportunities. We should be encouraging Canadian youth to be excited and ready to take on the responsibility of voting when they turn 18. This is critical to our democratic process, and we should be doing everything we can to teach, mentor and grow our youth leaders, and to put structures of involvement in place prior to handing them the significant responsibility of voting.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2013, just over one half of youth aged 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 indicated that they were at least somewhat interested in politics, compared to three quarters of seniors aged 65 to 74. We should be working to increase political engagement and interest among this young cohort so that the youth feel ready and prepared to vote by the time they are 18.

There are so many meaningful ways for youth to get involved in our political system, and we should be constantly emphasizing this. The last thing we would want to do is send a message that voting in federal elections every four or so years is the only way to get involved in civic life as a citizen of this country. That is exactly the message that we should be working to change. Civic involvement is a day-to-day task and a responsibility that is fulfilling. It means looking out for our fellow Canadians, taking an interest in local and national issues and making their voice and the voices of others heard.

Senator McPhedran stated in her speech that:

 . . . the benefit of parenting a newly enfranchised voter is that the parent is more likely to vote more regularly and in the same elections.

She also stated that this would, in turn, increase voter turnout. While this could potentially be a by-product of passing this bill, it should not be the reason for it.

A decision like changing the voting age is influential to the future of our democracy, and I believe such decisions must be made based on guiding principles. If the goal is to increase voter turnout among adults or parents, we should work to do that through civic programming, encouraging community involvement and making our democracy more relevant.

Honourable senators, throughout the debates on this bill, you may have wondered why 18 is the current voting age in Canada. Without understanding the background of this, it may seem arbitrary, like it could easily, and interchangeably, be 15, 16, 17 or 19, with no noticeable difference in our democracy. An article published on the Elections Canada website, written by Kees Aarts and Charlotte van Hees, two researchers from the Netherlands, explains some of this necessary background. Discussing elections in the electorate, the article states that there are two criteria that currently have a global consensus. One is the minimum voting age of 18 years. That’s on the Elections Canada website, colleagues. While Canada’s legislature should not make its decisions based on the working of external bodies in other countries, it’s important to understand the global research being done on this issue. In a world that can feel increasingly divided, and where disagreement and conflict are widespread, it feels necessary to acknowledge a rare global consensus.

The article does note that there are some exceptions to this consensus. I asked the Library of Parliament to investigate this, and they provided a list of countries that have a federal voting age below 18. There are only 11 countries that fall into this category. One of these countries is North Korea, and in 2019, the BBC described the elections as a “‘no-choice’ parliamentary election” where “turnout is always close to 100% and approval for the governing alliance is unanimous.” The article goes on to say:

Once it’s your turn, you receive a ballot paper with just one name on it. There’s nothing to fill in, no boxes to tick. You take that paper and put it into the ballot box, which is located in the open.

There’s also a voting booth where you could vote in private, but doing that would raise immediate suspicion, analysts say.

Colleagues, an election like this, of course, would never happen in Canada, but this demonstrates how the vast majority of democracies around the world view the qualifications of electors in the same way that our legislature has, with a non-electoral civic engagement taking place before the age of 18 and with voting in elections starting at that age.

This is the conclusion that Canada’s Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, also known as the “Lortie Commission,” came to in its report to cabinet in 1991. It used four criteria in determining who should vote, describing them as cornerstones of electoral law. They are: one, holding a stake in the governance of society; two, the ability to cast a rational and informed vote; three, conforming to the norms of responsible citizenship; four, maintaining impartiality of election officials.

The commission conducted thorough analysis of Canada’s voting age and whether it should be lowered, which included an examination of Canada’s other laws to understand what is permitted and what is not permitted for the 16- and 17-year-old minors in Canada. The analysis resulted in the commission’s recommendation 1.2.9 which states, “We recommend that the voting wage be set at 18 years of age.”

I understand that a lot has changed and been updated in our country since 1991, as is true in all forward-thinking and modern democracies. However, I believe that this analysis, and the recommendation from the Lortie Commission, is still valid today as the criteria on which the recommendation was based remains unchanged.

This brings me to my final point about Bill S-209. This bill, if passed, colleagues, will make a significant change to the qualifications of electors, the conduct of elections and the makeup of the electorate. Yet, colleagues, it is being introduced in the unelected chamber.

To provide some context, I’d like to use the example of another bill. On May 6, just one month ago, Senator Harder spoke on Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts. As we know, colleagues, that bill relates to the operations of this chamber.

During his speech, Senator Harder stated:

The government rightfully determined that Bill S-4 should originate in the Senate. It deals with the Senate’s institutional framework and organizational processes, and should be discussed and debated here first by those most affected.

Similarly, Minister Dominic LeBlanc just last Thursday expressed similar sentiments during the Committee of the Whole testimony on Bill S-4, where he stated:

I obviously defer to you and your colleagues in the Senate as to how the Senate chooses to structure itself. That’s why we thought it was important to have this legislation debated and, ultimately, we hope, adopted by the Senate. Then we’ll obviously make best efforts to do the same in the House.

He further added that Bill S-4 is:

. . . born in and of the Senate in the sense that, if the Senate didn’t achieve a consensus amongst the different groups and the leaders representing those groups, the House of Commons wasn’t going to opine itself on matters that affect directly and only the Senate.

And that he would be governed by our chamber’s voting “. . . if and when the Senate opines itself on this legislation.”

There is a precedent for this. Bills that significantly impact the working of one chamber should be introduced and first debated in that chamber. Senator McPhedran also acknowledged this precedent in her second reading speech on Bill S-209, stating:

While there have been previous private members’ bills to lower the voting age to 16, they have all originated in the other place.

Regardless of your thoughts or opinions on the substance of this bill, we must acknowledge that moving it forward through the Senate would be a procedural anomaly. We must leave the elections up to the elected chamber. Bills similar to Bill S-209 have been introduced in the other place before. They will likely be introduced again, but we must provide our colleagues there with the autonomy to initiate and lead that effort if there is such an interest.

It is for these reasons that I am putting forth an amendment to this bill. It is a reasoned amendment, which is one of three types of amendments that may be moved at second reading. It opposes the principle of the bill. Reading from the Senate Procedure in Practice document, a reasoned amendment:

. . . allows a senator to state the reasons for opposing second (or third) reading of a bill by introducing another relevant proposal that replaces the original question.

It is important to note that a reasoned amendment opposing the principle of the bill must be introduced at second reading, which, colleagues, is why I’m doing this here today.

Introducing a bill to significantly change the qualifications of electors in Canada is something that must be left up to the elected chamber.