As every city within the province of Quebec is getting plastered with the face and slogan of candidates that claim to be ready to represent the population, one wonders how much of an informed decision the public is ready to make.

The provincial election, which will take place Monday April 7th, has been at the forefront of social media within Quebec. Newspapers, television, radio and even social networks are exploding with facts regarding the quote on quote RIGHT decision to make concerning the future of this province. However, in order to make an appropriate decision, one must be informed. In the past, the younger population has often been criticized for their lack of involvement and interest for politics. We were branded as ignorant and indifferent with regards to our future. Although these claims may have been accurate years ago, they no longer seem to be justified. Following the red square movement of the last provincial election, the younger voting population have developed an arising interest for politics and who governs Quebec.

A survey performed in the streets of Montreal, asked random strangers to answer simple questions concerning the elections and asked the participant to disclose their age. Questions included: “Who is the current Prime Minister of Quebec?”, “Has Samuel Dechamplain ever been prime minister?”, “Who is the leader of the current opposing party?”, “Has Tim Horton ever been prime minister?”. Although some of these questions seem significantly easy to answer, the survey actually demonstrated that the older spectrum of the voting population clearly failed to answer any of these questions correctly. When these uninformed individuals where asked whether the voting age should be reduced to 16, they unanimously answered no. Their main reasons were that teenagers were not mature enough and not significantly informed about politics. However, when the survey questions were asked to high school students within Montreal, they scored significantly better than the older voting population. Do these results indicate a genuine interest in politic within teenagers or simply an increase exposure to politic by social media?

Of course, this is only a single survey performed on a single day on the streets of Montreal, and which was only conducted in French. As such, this is not a representing sample of the entire Quebec population. However, it does raise the question of whether individuals should not take so time to become more informed before casting their votes.