Post-Secondary Students in Vancouver Need to Vote

On Oct. 20, Vancouverites will be voting to elect a mayor, 10 city councillors, seven commissioners for the Board of Parks and Recreation, and nine school trustees for the Vancouver School Board.

That is, if they decide to vote.

During the last municipal election in November 2014, residents of Metro Vancouver voiced their concerns about the issue of affordable housing. In the time between that election and this one, little progress has been made to alleviate the housing crisis, so perhaps it’s understandable that people are reluctant to make it out to the polls. If nothing has changed in four years, why try again?

Writing for the Surrey Now-Leader, Katya Slepian cites an SFU research paper which found that “more than 50 per cent of Metro Vancouverites don’t believe that they can affect the way government runs.”

If roughly half of all voters aren’t getting involved in provincial or federal elections, then we’re likely to get an even smaller turnout for this month’s municipal election.

I think a lot of this falls on the shoulders of my generation—college-age citizens who are disenchanted with the idea of democracy. A lot of new voters, and young adults in general, don’t even know how their electoral systems operate.

For instance, nearly every young person that I have talked to about the upcoming election has said that they’re not planning on voting, and many have said they haven’t voted in past elections either. Even those who do vote might simply cast their ballot for whoever their parents are voting for because they don’t know who else might deserve their support.

To change this, voters need to take it upon themselves to stay up-to-date with issues concerning their own cities. As Slepian explains, “only 29 per cent [of Vancouver residents have] even attended a public consultation meeting.” This shows that, regardless of their supposed concern with current events, citizens are failing to take any initiative themselves.

Young people constitute a large portion of the population in Metro Vancouver. Not only do all of our votes together make a big difference, but also, issues like unaffordable housing are going to continue affecting us directly in the future. We should put in the effort to educate ourselves on the matters at hand, decide which issues are most meaningful to us, and make our opinions heard by casting our votes.

We aren’t risking anything by making our own choices for who we want to see in office, but by not voting, we are at risk of not having our voices heard at all.