April 1, 2014
One of the advantages of a majority government is that it can pretty much do whatever it wants. How we ended up with a strong, stable majority government with just 39 percent of the popular vote is just a fun fact of Canadian democracy.
But with voter turnouts at historic lows, everyone realizes that our democratic process needs some tinkering. Which is why the government has introduced the Fair Elections Act. Ironic title, because in a clever move this government has decided the way to deal with low voter turnout is to make voting more difficult. Got to hand it to them. Did not see that coming.
How is it possible in 2014, in a bill that deals with how we can vote, there was absolutely no discussion of online voting? And I know, online voting makes a lot of Canadians very nervous. I’m one of them. I’m old-fashioned. I like the notion of lining up in a church basement, getting a little stubby pencil and marking an X. And do you know what that makes me? A dinosaur.
Because while I may not like the idea of online voting, I know who will love the idea: young Canadians. They are some of the most wired people on the planet. They go to school online, they work online—heck, they find husbands and wives online. There are literally millions of young Canadians who have never walked across the room to an attractive person and tried to score a phone number, because there’s an app for that. If the biological imperative won’t get them out of the house, I don’t know how voting is going to do it.
The government has a responsibility to make voting available wherever Canadians live. And yes, all Canadians reside in a riding, but young Canadians live online. If we let them pay taxes there, let them vote there.