Voting In Canada

Voting percentages of young adults in Canada has been on a gradual decline for the past 30 years, as shown in “Samara: Message Not Delivered”, reaching an all time low during the 2011 Federal Election. Youth voting has seen a decrease in volume due to reasons such as political leaders failing to contact young adults during key electoral times, young adults perceiving that politics are irrelevant to them, and in British Columbia, for example, registering to be eligible to vote in the Provincial General Election. The conclusion found in the report states that a majority of young people do not vote as a result of not being contacted by political leaders, and “they're not contacted because they don't vote” (Samara, 2015, 13).

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Only 42% of Canadians born between the years 1985 and 1996 cast votes in the 2011 federal election, in comparison to 57% of people born between 1959 and 1984 and 67% of Canadians born prior to 1958 (Samara, 2015, 5). Contrary to the total outcome of voting impact, young adults participate in significantly more political events and discussions. For instance, 38% of Millennials attended a political meeting and 21% gave a political speech in public, in contrast to 23% and 9% from Generation X2, and 31% and 4% from the Baby Boomers3 (Samara, 2015, 6). Political engagement among peers is also notably higher in rates of discussion among the younger generation. In fact, all 5 methods of conversation used in the survey, which includes discussion via text message, re-posting via social media, and consultation in person or on the phone (Samara, 2015, 7), scored voluminously higher than any other age group. The information gathered by Samara Canada further shows that although overall voting numbers are lower in young Canadians than older generations, Millennials continue to excel at involvement beyond