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On Oct. 5, I became a Canadian citizen.
I moved to Canada because I was privileged enough to be able to afford it, and stayed because Canada treated me well by giving me opportunity, community and purpose.
I passed the citizenship test with full marks and swore the oath proudly, and because of that, my Canadian friends haven’t passed up the opportunity to joke that I am more aware of the rote details of Canadian history, culture and political systems than most of them are. They have a point in that the details are fresh in my mind—details that have made me think pretty critically about the discourse online, offline and politically these last few years.
We have all heard a lot from people banging on about their rights as Canadians (vaccinations, masks, truckers, the whole lot), but citizenship comes with more than just rights—it comes with a list of responsibilities, too, such as the obvious “obey the law,” the much-maligned jury duty—and voting.
With the level of engagement online and surrounding political discourse, I’d expect the average Canadian to be champing at the bit to vote at every opportunity, but the situation on the ground is anything but, with real political engagement (voting, rather than complaining) in Canada being “low energy” at best.
The numbers say it all—voter turnout in the 2021 federal election was 62.6 per cent. Only 17.2 million of 27.5 million voters bothered to turn up, leaving 10.2 million votes on the table. Or, to put it more colourfully—if “didn’t vote” had been a ballot option, Canada’s prime minister would be an empty chair.
It doesn’t just go for the federal elections though—despite all his popularity in 2020, John Horgan’s NDP came second to the number of voters who didn’t bother by a country mile, while here in Whistler, only 3,124 of Whistler’s 9,152 voters had a say about who should be mayor in 2022.
Now, we don’t have an election coming up soon, but looking at those numbers and cross-referencing them with the quality of engagement and anger, online and off, about political issues, it’s a confusing read on “the room” that is Canada right now.
It’s hard to even find an issue to blame or a politician to wear some community frustration—sadly, polling suggests many are taking out their frustrations on Canada’s immigration system—but I propose a pretty obvious solution to feelings of disenfranchisement and anger about Canada’s direction and standing in the world: Look inwards, and think about how comfortable you are with letting politics be dominated by the unrepresentative few who vote.
But who is voting? Well, your landlord is. So are the folks who try to kill all developments because they’ll affect neighbourhood character. So are people who own multiple short-term rental listings as an investment when Canada’s economy is being hamstrung—no, poisoned by a housing crisis brought about by a fundamental lack of enough affordable housing.
It goes by age group, too. To pull some quotes from Elections Canada’s brief analysis of the 2021 turnout, “in 2021, turnout gradually increased with age groups, from 46.7 per cent for ages 18 to 24 to 74.9 per cent for ages 65 to 74, and then declined to 65.9 per cent for those aged 75 and over,” it reads.
Young people are traditionally less likely to own property because they’re at an earlier stage in life, and therefore are more likely to be hit hard by a shortage of housing, but also represent the least engaged portion of the electorate. Their absence from the discourse is part of the problem we face today, because the voices are just not there to be heard.
I can offer no solutions to Canada’s current problems—I would sooner leave that to those much smarter than I am, but also I’d argue such a low level of political engagement across all levels of government is a huge part of the problem.
It means that overall, discourse is degraded and patchy. Cheap solutions and virtue-signalling policies are the first port of call for those more interested in theatrics and posturing than hard work (such as the unsavoury dog whistling about migrant numbers as a talking point). With so few engaging with mayors, councillors, MLAs and MPs for so long, is it any wonder things have gone wonky?
Years and years of that is what has led us to where we are today, with a whole bunch of problems. I am not so pessimistic to claim it was intentional, but an unbalanced approach can cause all sorts of unintended issues down the road—and here we are, down the road.
The problems facing Canada today will not be solved in a hurry, but maybe, just maybe, turning up to vote when you’re asked to will make a difference over time. As a new Canadian, I know I plan to.
