How to engage young voters in the upcoming federal election

In the last federal election, young people aged 18 to 24 had the lowest turnout of all age groups — 47 per cent, per Elections Canada figures.

In order to increase youth turnout this election, students and experts say political parties should tailor their campaigns to younger voters. 

Parties should first focus on educating new voters on the electoral process, says Ethan Evans, a fourth-year political science student at McMaster University in Hamilton. 

"When I started my post-secondary education, I didn't even fully understand which issues were provincial and federal," Evans said. 

His classmate, Jean-Luc Lambert agrees. He says many of his friends outside school don't follow politics at all — either because they don't think their vote matters, or because they believe political parties aren't targeting them enough in their campaigns. 

"My friends have no idea what's going on," Lambert said. "They often hear different opinions from each political party and have no idea what to believe is true or false. That makes them care less about elections and voting."

Parties could do a better job targeting youth in their campaigns, especially when it comes to issues like housing affordability and climate change, says Mackenzie Barwell, another fourth-year political science student at McMaster.

"When the youth hear any politicians talking about our future and protecting it, even that word specifically really resonates," Barwell said. "We're not necessarily thinking about right now, we're thinking about down the line."

Many young voters say social media is the best place for parties to reach people their age. 

"That's where young people are at right now, and that's the direction they have to take to engage people," said Tynan Webb, another fourth-year political science student at McMaster. 

Online platforms offer a variety of tools political parties can use to target young voters, according to Harneet Singh, managing principal and digital strategist at EOK Consults. 

For instance, he says short-form content, such as Instagram reels or stories, tend to resonate with youth. Parties can also use microtargetting tools on these platforms to tailor content to the audience they want to reach.  

"People can be targeted based on their interests in sustainability, fashion, online use," Singh said. 

Some platforms also use artificial intelligence, which helps political parties draft captions for their posts and test which ones resonate best with audiences, Singh said.