Ontario leaders ponder the power of youth vote

Provincial party heads join forces to think through increasing engagement

It was an unprecedented civil discussion about civic duty and democracy. Ontario’s four most powerful political party leaders on the same stage with a similar message about the need for democratic renewal so more young people vote.

Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, Progressive Conservative interim leader Vic Fedeli, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, and Green Leader Mike Schreiner gathered at Ryerson University to discuss — not to debate.

Moderated by the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist and visiting professor at Ryerson, Martin Regg Cohn, the forum focused on the urgent need to better engage young people.

With provincial election voter turnout a dismal 51per cent in 2014, and a record low 48 per cent in 2011, there are concerns in many quarters about the state of democracy in Ontario.

“Who do we blame for disengagement? I think the media, politicians and the way we conduct politics has to share in some of the blame,” the Green’s Schreiner told more than 300 people at the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre.

“I am deeply concerned about our civil discourse in terms of how we refer to voters,” he said.

“We talk about ‘taxpayers’ a lot as if we’re only ‘taxpayers,’ or we talk as if voters are there to harvest votes, or that we’re consumers of government services, rather than actually talking about people as citizens.”

Schreiner said such nomenclature labelling diminishes the fact that “as citizens, we have rights and responsibilities” — the right to vote and the responsibility to “to engage in the political system.”

Wynne said politicians “have a shared responsibility” to encourage people to exercise their franchise.

“If I think about my own life, my grandmother didn’t get to vote till she was 30 years old. So you wouldn’t have dared not vote in our household,” the premier said.

Fedeli said it’s no wonder young people don’t vote because the electoral process is so antiquated.

“You’re going to be handed a ballot. You’ll get in a cardboard box and there’s a pencil and you’re going to fill out your ballot and hand it to somebody who is going to put it in another box,” said Fedeli. “You work with tablets and electronic voting. The way you work is completely different than the way our system is set up.”

Horwath said many young people aren’t voting because those in power are “not reflecting their hopes and dreams.”

“Look, I have a son who is 25 years old and he doesn’t a have full-time job and he’s living in my basement. And I know that lots of young people are worried about their future, worried about what’s coming up for them,” she said.

“It’s good that they’re talking about it but I don’t necessarily think their plan to engage youth is the best,” said Dmytro Basmat, 18, who will vote for the first time in June.