Itโs September which means Iโm back at school, back to writing blog posts, itโs colder outside, and fall weather has returned (which I think is the best type of weather). 
While Iโm outside appreciating fall weather I also notice the red, orange, green, and blue signs placed all around my community because of the recent Canadian Election. Unlike blog posts and cold weather, elections are not usually in September but October. However in August the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an election early for September 20th hoping to gain a majority government.
Now the election is over after Canadians voted on the the 20th.ย Free and fair elections are one of the Democratic Principals, another is Citizen participation which is crucial during an election.
However, not every Canadian eligible to vote participates in elections. I think to be motivated to vote, people need to feel strongly about something which they can voice by voting. Apathy prevents people people from voting, if voters donโt know or care about what theyโre voting for, they probably wonโt vote at all.
One thing that might motivate people who do vote is simply the right of suffrage, they want to exercise their right to vote. Voters could also be concerned about a topic that a local candidate or leader says they want to work on. Feeling strongly for or against a party, or the way the government is structured is also something that would make someone want to vote.
The results of the election turned out to be as most people have been saying, almost the same as before. The Liberal Party won without a majority, but did win a couple more seats. I think people expected this because it would have been difficult for them to get a majority since a lot of people were annoyed or upset at the Liberal party that the election was called early and during the pandemic.
These are the results of the election, from all the Canadians who voted. Like I said before, I think Canadians donโt vote when they arenโt really worried about anything they might impact by voting. According to Global Newsย , this years election is looking like it had particularity low turnout for Canada, maybe the lowest since 2008 when it was 58.8%.
โI would say in this instance, there was not a lot of interest in this electionโ
– Darrell Bricker via Global News
With covid, I would have expected more people to vote because itโs an issue everyone has different views on, and something that impacts everyone. I think that that this year people may have not voted because the didnโt want an election to happen, they were already content with how everything was and didnโt really care about the results, or they didnโt feel the need to do research because they donโt think about politics very much.
These different levels of how much people cared about voting could be seen in a student election at my school as well. Naturally not everyone was interested in it, but some people did research and were eager to practice voting so they are prepared when they are eligible. I think the live video call my school held with our local candidates in our area got more people interested in the election, where we were able to ask questions, and see the PPC candidateโs unusually agressive responses to high school students questions, and discuss it with people afterwards.
Another thing about the student vote was that the results were drastically different than the real one, which makes me wonder how the results may have been different if younger people had voted in the federal election, and if voter turnout would be more or less. Especially with places like the City of Vancouver endorsing the possibility of making the voting age 16 in municipal elections according to CBC, itโs a relevant thing to be thinking about. I think that student elections like this one can help prevent low voter turnouts like we saw this year. Which is great! Itโs important to have as many people vote in elections as possible so that the results are a reflection of what all Canadians want as a whole.
Really if anyone (not just students) learned more about Canadaโs election process and government system, they may be more likely to vote. Maybe you are more likely to vote after reading this post? And maybe I am more likely to in the future after learning from this project!