So federal elections are fast approaching here in Canada. And after they count the votes and declare the composition of the new government, the media will start analyzing all the statistics from the election. And of course one of the things they'll say is "youth and young adults had a low-turnout". Again.
And then they'll start coming up with all these explanations about why: Apathy, lack of political education, you name it. And these reasons are accurate, but they don't tell the whole story: as John Green said, "the truth resists simplicity". So disclaimer: I'm not going to cover all the reasons why young people don't vote, but I'm going to explain why I and certain others didn't.
It's simple really: Where do we vote?
I've studied full-time for the last two years in Alberta, so I think that I could have voted in the provincial elections they had here in April or May? But not one of my pieces of identification say I live in Alberta, not even my pilot's license (which I got here), They all say that I live in B.C.! So, I could have voted in the municipal elections they had recently? Well, I genuinely don't know (see lack of education mentioned above). I mean, I'm in B.C. for maybe a total of month annually. I don't really consider myself as "living" there, even if all my papers say I do.
And that brings us to another reason, one that I mentioned earlier, apathy. Not in the sense that I don't care about politics (I genuinely do), but I'm leaving Alberta in a month or so (I hope), so I didn't care about their elections, and I'm never in B.C., so why would I care about who the Mayor of my hometown is?
So, I guess that the media is correct. We don't vote because of apathy and a lack of education.
Just maybe not exactly in the way they were originally thinking...
