And what that means for the future.
In the last federal election in 2011, only 38.8% of Canadians under 24 voted. On the flip side, more than 70% of adults 55 and older voted in that same election. In 2011 the Conservatives handed the liberals a crushing defeat.
Youths were very clearly absent in the 2011 Federal Election. 61% of all Canadians voted in the last election, and the majority of those voters were adults over the age of 40. These numbers paint a completely different picture than the one we see in 2015.
Justin Trudeau handed Stephen Harper and the Conservatives a devastating blow in October of this year. Not including votes cast by Canadians who registered on Election Day, there were 17,599,353 votes cast in this election, up from the 14,823,408 votes in 2011. That’s nearly three million more votes with more unaccounted for. Where did those come from?
All signs point towards Canada’s youths. The current political landscape paints a much more diverse picture than that of four years ago. Early numbers state that 18–24 voting went up from the 38% to nearly 50% if not higher. Advance voter turnout was up 71%, and nearly 70,000 students voted on college and university campuses in advance polling all across the nation.
The 2015 Federal Election has clearly been an election that has appealed to voters of all ages to take action. But what changed? Why did Canadian youth voters vote in this election, but not the last election?
Youth Voting Accessibility
This year, Elections Canada made the attempt to make voting more accessible for students. In order to get youths voting, pop-up polling stations appeared on 39 postsecondary campuses all across Canada from Oct. 5–8.
Elections Canada spokesman Dugald Maudsley told the Globe and Mail that the pilot’s goal was “to make it more accessible for students on campus to be able to vote in advance or to go and register.”
For example, students at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus could register and vote at Oscar Peterson Hall on campus in advance polling, as well as on Election Day.
Elections Canada was successful in improving the quality of voting stations for youths, and that showed in this election. Many may take it for granted, but having voting stations on campus is important, and the effect of those stations is enormous. Students who live on campus had a voting station in the same building as their rooms. Oscar Peterson Hall, or OPH, on the UTM campus is the biggest dormitory on campus.
Millennials are Starting to Care
Voting Accessibility is important in getting youths to actually vote the day of, but that isn’t the only reason why youths voted in 2015. To put it simply, young Canadians are just starting to care more.
Just look at social media. On Election Day there were 150,000 tweets to @justintrudeau, much more than the 68,385 tweets sent to @pmharper and 21,602 tweets sent to @thomasmulcair. The importance of social media is huge in actually getting youths excited to vote, and more importantly, excited to get involved with the political process.
On Election Day, all across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, Canadian youths were posting about the election. At the UTM campus, students on Facebook posted all day about heading over to OPH in order to vote. On Instagram students posted pictures of them at polling stations. Community engagement was high in this election. As more students posted about going to vote, their friends got more involved.
“My roommate only voted because the rest of us went to the polls. She probably wouldn’t have voted if we didn’t,” said Holly Watson, an Art and Art History student at the University of Toronto. Peer pressure worked in the government’s favor this election. As more and more friends would post on social media that they voted, that began to change the mind of students who initially did not plan on voting.
But it wasn’t just peer pressure. Students are straight up just caring more about the world and their place in it. In 2015, everyone has access to every piece of news in North America. Information about voting and about the candidates you would vote for has never been more readily available. Justin Trudeau has 1.09 million followers on Twitter. He has 1.24 million likes on Facebook. It has never been easier for the government to post directly to the people it is representing, and that shows with Trudeau’s campaign.
Late Night Talk Shows and Politics
When John Stewart retired from the Daily Show this summer, millennials lost a voice, and valid resource in their political education. Some adults may scoff at the idea of Late Night TV having an effect on the votes of their viewers, but the fact of the matter is that John Stewart could sway some of the votes of his audience with what he would say and portray on the show.
Going into the 2016 US Presidential Election, Late Night TV has never had more of an effect. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, and Jeb Bush are just a few of the men and women in the running who have appeared on shows like The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon or The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. You may think this is just a publicity stunt to get a few more votes, but important politicians appearing on Late Night is important to the youth audience.
For example, Stephen Colbert’s Late Night averages about 2.8 million viewers an episode. Well on the ten episodes that hosted men or women running for President, those numbers jumped up to 3.6 million every single time.
The importance of this cannot be stated enough. Vice President Joe Biden’s interview with Stephen Colbert saw more than a million hits on YouTube for both videos. Hillary Clinton’s sketch with Jimmy Fallon calling out Donald Trump has been seen over five million times. Between TV and YouTube, these politicians are getting out there in front of the youth vote.
While Canada doesn’t have Late Night show of its own, that didn’t stop John Oliver from making the Canadian Election his number one priority on his episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver the day before the election. In the episode, Oliver talked about the importance of voting in Canada, for one simple reason: to get rid of Stephen Harper.
With the help of famous Canadian actor Mike Meyer, who dressed as a Canadian Mountie, Oliver blasted Harper for his policies on numerous subjects, including refugees and racism within Canada. The two comedians urged Canadians to vote at any cost, because their number one priority should be to get Harper out of office.
That video has been seen on YouTube over six million times.
The Vote Against Stephen Harper
John Oliver hit the nail on the head with his anti-Harper campaign. Canadian youth voters really do not like Harper. “I voted because I think Harper is a fucking idiot and needed to be voted out of office.” “I hate Harper.” “I really don’t enjoy Harper.” Those are just a few quotes by students of the Professional Writing and Communication Program at the University of Toronto. The dislike of Harper is rampart, and that is a huge reason for the increase of the youth vote in the 2015 election.
The six million views on a video of John Oliver telling Canada to vote out Stephen Harper is more than any of the US Presidential Candidate videos on YouTube right now. Canadian youths may not be as invested in Canadian politics as a whole, but they sure cared to get out Harper. That showed when the Liberals swept the Conservatives out of office with a new majority government.
The Future of the Canadian Youth Vote
Canadian youths came out in force to vote in the most recent election, but what does that mean for the future. If the vote to get Stephen Harper out of office wasn’t so important, the results may be very different.
“I probably wouldn’t have voted if I didn’t want to get Stephen Harper out of office so bad,” said Nick Colletti, an Economics Major at the University of Toronto. The anti-Harper vote was important to getting youths to vote, and that doesn’t necessarily bode well for the Liberals in future elections.
The youth vote is at a precipice entering the next few years of politics in Canada. Canadian youths don’t love Justin Trudeau as much as they hated Stephen Harper. Social media talk about politics has become almost non-existent amongst youth voters who posted so much about the election in the days before October 19th.
The question going into the next elections will be whether or not the youth voters of today continue to vote. Not every election has a ‘boogeyman’, so the duty lies with Trudeau and the Liberals to do as promised and keep youth voters interested.
That being said, if he keeps dropping truth bombs on the media like he has so far, I don’t think Trudeau has much to worry about.
