Should Canada lower the voting age to 16? The Hub debates

The vote has historically come with the full rights and obligations of citizenship, such as jury duty, contractual freedom, and independent legal decision-making. Offering the ballot without these responsibilities risks weakening its meaning and weight. An inconsistency is also clear. Governments in Canada do not allow 16-year-olds to drink, purchase marijuana, or gamble because they are not considered responsible enough to handle those personal risks. If that standard applies to individual choices, it should apply even more so to a collective decision that determines the country’s political direction. It is rare that a reasonable person seriously proposes lowering the drinking age because 16-year-olds are responsible; the same logic should apply to voting, a collective decision that seriously and concretely affects every person residing in Canada. I’d argue that a more effective, reasonable, and tenable approach would be to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote for school trustees. This would give them a say in issues they experience directly, help them develop civic habits, and prepare them for the responsibilities of voting in a federal election after they turn 18. Lowering the voting age could make Canadian democracy healthier  By Sean Speer, The Hub’s editor-at-large My young colleague Aiden Muscovitch argues above that lowering the voting age below 18 would be “a mistake.” His case is straightforward: if those under 18 can’t drink, gamble, or smoke, they shouldn’t be trusted with decisions about our collective political life. He also notes that teenagers generally don’t work or contribute as much to the public purse as adults do. As Aiden’s senior by two decades, I’m not convinced. It’s true that teenagers contribute less to the collective costs of government. But it’s also true that many adults don’t either. Decades of raising the basic personal exemption and expanding refundable tax credits have created a large share of tax filers with no income tax liability. They still vote on how the government spends money they’re not contributing to. The claim that older voters have more wisdom is also less obvious than it sounds. Civic literacy isn’t a precondition for voting—and for good reason. If it were, it’s likely most eligible voters would fail. Spend an afternoon as a scrutineer at a polling station and you’ll see that this isn’t just speculation. Aiden’s strongest point may be the dissonance between the voting age and other legal thresholds. Perhaps they should be harmonized. But it’s not self-evident that they must be. Casting a ballot doesn’t carry the same immediate health or financial risks as smoking, drinking, or gambling. The best case for leaving the voting age at 18 is simply that it works well enough. Eighteen is arbitrary, but so is 16. Once we accept that, it may be easiest to leave the status quo. Where Aiden is right is in his proposed compromise: lower the voting age for school board elections. Students have a direct stake in their schools, and this would give them a meaningful way to shape them. And for what it’s worth, Aiden’s willingness to grapple with these kinds of questions at his age is itself a strong argument for civic engagement among young people. If more of us approached public issues with the same thoughtfulness and openness, our democracy would be healthier for it.