With the Ontario Election just days away, the biggest issue remains that younger individuals, such as students, aren’t getting out and exercising their right to vote. This causes issues in our elections, as there are so many people who end up not voting when they should be.
After the 5 week long college strike, Glen Morgan, a politics professor at Fanshawe College, explains if that will change students minds when it comes to voting.
“I think the strike, anybody who had any connection to it, whether it was faculty like myself, or the students who were horribly, and I’m going to admit that right now, horribly affected by this strike, it was brutal, the reaction and the action of all of the political parties towards the end of it had an interesting effect.”
There has been talks and rumors that Ontario wants to lower the voting age down to 16. Morgan thinks that it doesn’t matter how old you are, but that if they do lower the age that high school kids need to have more political knowledge in Civics classes to ensure that they know what they’re doing. He says that there are 50 and 60 year old individuals that don’t follow politics, yet they vote, so age really isn’t the problem, but more so the lack of voting.
Morgan says for youth, there are things they and everyone should be doing before election time.
“Read everything you possibly can, follow the news, listen to your friends, your family, your co-workers, and make an informed choice. There are a number of places that you can get a lot of information about this.”
Elections are on June 7th, and everyone is encouraged to research and to vote.