Canada should follow U.K. in lowering voting age to 16: senator

Sen. Marilou McPhedran lowering the voting age to 16 would be good for democracy and that the only arguments against it are "based on stereotypes."

Now that the British government has vowed to lower its voting age to 16 by the next general election, one Canadian senator says it’s past time for Canada to do the same.

The U.K. announced last week that it would lower its voting age from 18 to 16 in a bid to strengthen British democracy and restore trust in politics.

Sen. Marilou McPhedran said the issue has been her “top parliamentary priority” since she joined the Red Chamber. She said lowering the voting age to 16 would be good for democracy and that the only arguments against it are “based on stereotypes.”

McPhedran said decisions being made in Canada now will affect younger generations and that extending voting rights to younger people is “logical” and “about fairness.” She added that about a third of 16-year-olds in Canada have some form of employment and are already taxpayers.

Sixteen-year-old Jaden Braves and the organization he leads, Young Politicians of Canada, want to see the federal voting age lowered to 16. He told The Canadian Press that Canada “has to stop living in the shadow of other countries’ innovation that’s progressing faster than ours.”

“I think we need to stop being the country that waits for somebody else to take leadership on something we clearly have the chance to progress forward on,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll learn some lessons soon.”

Braves lamented the many bills that have been introduced in Canada over the past 20 years to lower the voting age that ultimately failed to pass.

McPhedran’s most recent bill to lower the federal voting age to 16 was introduced at the end of May. She said it’s her priority to get it to second reading and into committee when Parliament resumes in September.