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
The Division of Labour exhibit portrays sustainable ways of creating art while also looking at the difficulties of creating a sustainable art career. Housed in the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre’s main gallery space until April 20 and accompanied by a panel discussion, Division of Labour warns of the scarcity of resources, labour rights and living wages of artists.
Division of Labour also serves as an educational tool to communicate and start discourse around the issues regarding sustainability. The Socio-Economic Status of Artists in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area discussion, which was facilitated by Divisions of Labour curator, Suzanne Carte, and included panelists Sally Lee, Michael Maranda and Angela Orasch, encouraged artists to be vocal and seek action.
“People want to be around artists, but they really don’t. If they were living in the reality that a lot of artists are living in, it would not be favourable. What they want is the pseudo creative lifestyle. They want to be around beautiful things and smart people, but they don’t really want to be assisting with making sure artists are making a living wage and that artists are being supported financially,” explained Carte.
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For emerging artists, this exhibits presents a valuable learning experience as it informs them of community issues. This topic is particularly important since emerging artists are often asked to work for free, often under a pretense that the work will add to their portfolios or lead to exposure. However, Carte argues that asking artists to work for free devalues the work they do.
“Because you are emerging, and because you’re new to the practice does not mean that any institution, organization or individual business, whatever it might be, can take advantage of you and use it as exposure… it’s not about gaining experience — I can gain experience on the job. I can gain experience while being compensated for what I do,” explained Carte.
While Carte encourages individuals to stand up for themselves, she understands that many artists may not be in a position to be able to reject sparse opportunities. She, alongside the panelists at the discussions, further discussed ways emerging and established artists can fight for their rights.
Lee gave an overview of organizations and advocacy groups that focus on bettering labour and housing situations and are making communities aware of gentrification and the living experiences of artists in Hamilton and Toronto.
Maranda added that lobbying for bigger grants or funding is not enough. The community also needs to be advocating for the improvement of artists’ economic status through establishing a basic or minimum hourly wage, affordable rent and transportation.
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Recently, Maranda was a quantitative researcher for the Waging Culture survey. The survey investigated home ownership in Hamilton compared to Toronto. Maranda concluded that Hamilton artists are less reliant on the private market and contribute more to the public art community.
The survey also suggested an artist migration from Toronto to Hamilton due to Hamilton’s lower rent and higher artist home ownership. This leads to a domino effect as real estate agents and developers follow the migration and aid gentrification.
Orasch stated that real estate agents and developers have secretly attended similar panel discussions. The panelists speculated they do so to learn how to market housing to artists. However, the overall sentiment was that they crossed into an artist-designated space to further exploit artists.
“Developers are taking advantage of the language that we have been able to construct for ourselves, to be able to be attractive to other artists or other individuals who feel as though they want an “artsy” experience out of life,” explained Carte.
Lee emphasized how all these surveys and discussions need to reach key decision makers. The Division of Labour exhibit and the panelists at the discussion have repeatedly stressed that talk is merely educational, the true goal is action and change.
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