Having the lowest voter turnout of any age group, Canadian university students need to embrace their civic duty and utilize their right to vote
By: Zarah Rahman, Opinion Contributor
Every four years, Canadian students huddle around laptops, like watching a reality show, as news anchors crack down on maps filled with red or blue as the results of the American election come in.
At McMaster, US politics has great engagement - a panel event discussing the November 5th election nearly sold out to 500 attendees, both online and in-person. But do we have this same energy for our own local and federal politics?
Canadian youth aged 18-30 has an alarmingly lower voter engagement compared to other age groups. One survey by the Canadian government found that youth voter turnout was 14 per cent lower than those aged 47 years or older during the 2019 federal election.
Many factors may contribute to this, like variable civic education. As a Toronto District School Board student, I have participated in Student Vote since elementary school and was taught how to research political campaigns. These classroom lessons helped me understand how to make the important decision on who to vote for, which encouraged me to vote for all elections that I was eligible for.
However, after a conversation with my friends, I found that those who did not have this education may face greater difficulty navigating confusing political campaigns and races. A survey by Civix Canada found that two-thirds of Canada’s youth report teaching civic education not being a priority at their schools. Individuals who do not learn about how how government institutions work are less likely to vote.
Another barrier may be the accessibility to voting services. In 2021, the Canadian Vote on Campus program was suspended for the 44th general election due to COVID-19 and the snap-election call, limiting many post-secondary students from an accessible polling station.
The program allowed students to vote for either their home riding or for the riding of their university. This program enabled students not able to visit home to vote strategically.
When coming to university, we meet people from various educational backgrounds. This is why we have many introductory courses to make sure all students receive essential foundational knowledge. I think this should also be the case for civic education within McMaster, which has thousands of eligible student voters.
One model to implement this could follow that of the CONSENT 1A00: It Takes All Of Us offered by the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office, which auto-enrolls McMaster first-years to spread awareness on sexual violence. On a larger scale, McMaster could work towards increasing on-campus awareness of voting stations and resources for voters. This could also mean encouraging Elections Canada to bring back the Vote on Campus initiative.
On a personal level, we need to reflect on our civic duties. When facing uncertainty about who we should vote for or how our electoral politics even function, we could utilize tools, such as VoteCompass, to help us understand our political alignment and find our places in the political sphere. Discussions with friends and family could also help us understand diverse perspectives while also encouraging our circles to vote.
Politics impacts all aspects of student life. From your city’s local climate response, to the province’s OSAP policies and the Federal Government’s pharmacare pilot, we have the power to influence change with our vote. With the possibility of elections both federally and provincially occurring within the next year, this rings true now more than ever.
Politics impacts all aspects of student life . . . we have the power to influence change with our vote.
We know the power of paper with our degrees - but we can also see this power reflected on the ballot. With these upcoming Canadian elections, as students we should all contribute to increasing the currently sad voter turnout of our age range and embrace our civic duty as citizens of a democracy.
By: Drew Simpson
On Feb. 26, the Green is not White environmental racism workshop took place at the Hamilton Public Library’s Wentworth room. The free, open-to all workshop, garnered intrigue from attendees interested in learning about environmental racism.
Presenters sat on a raised platform and the room was filled with chart easel pads, activist posters and resources. The Green is Not White workshop, which is organized by Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces in partnership with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Environment Hamilton and the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion started its seven-hour agenda with a land acknowledgement, icebreakers and then laid down foundational knowledge.
Environmental racism is originally defined by Prof. Benjamin Chavis as the racial discrimination and unequal enforcement of environmental policies. The types of environmental racism have expanded since this 1987 definition and currently encompass air pollution, clean water, climate migration, extreme weather, food production, gentrification and toxins in the community and workplace.
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The crust of the issue is that ethnic minorities are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Black and Indigenous populations are most affected by environmental racism, yet this makes it no less of a collective issue. Local case studies were highlighted to drive this message close to home.
For example, most of Hamilton’s waste facilities are clustered just north of and within residential areas. This includes a proposed electronic waste processing facility, which can cause lead and mercury exposure, and an existing chemical wastes facility that is known for chemical explosions causing evacuations and serious injury. Loads of biosolids have been trucked through neighbourhoods posing disease risks from pathogens, concerns of terrible odours and ammonia use for steam filtering.
Studies show that Hamilton neighbourhoods with single-parent families and low education are the most exposed to air pollution. Since these neighbourhoods have fewer resources and are systematically marginalized, they are targeted by acts of environmental racism. The hashtag #EnvRacismCBTUACW continually discusses case studies across Canada.
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Along with the extensive examples of Canadians and Hamiltonians living in dire conditions due to environmental racism, as well as the government’s oversight of this issue, various Hamilton organizations have taken it upon themselves to drive change.
This workshop was the third part of a four-phase action research initiative on environmental racism by ACW, which develops tools to better the environmental conditions of jobs and the workplace and CBTU, a coalition that breaks the silence on African-Canadians’ labour issues. While this third stage involves community engagement, the fourth and final stage involves a joint report and video that will be housed on both the ACW and CBTU websites.
The slogan “Green is Not White” highlights that green jobs and environmentally safe conditions should not be reserved for white people. People of colour are most likely to work and live in dire conditions, and therefore deserve economic justice and access to clean water and land.
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