Voting at 16? Meet Toronto teens leading charge to lower city’s voting age

Expert lays out arguments for and against 

⭐️HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW⭐️

• A group of teens won the first leg of their fight to get Toronto to lower the voting age to 16 in city polls.
• This doesn’t allow them to vote in city elections, but intends to give them a say in changes to their neighbourhoods. 
• They say this effort is a first step in a larger movement to lower the voting age in all elections at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. 
• Read on to hear arguments for and against the change. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

A group of Toronto teens are celebrating after convincing their city to take the voices of young people more seriously. 

On Nov. 13, Toronto city councillors passed the DM23.1 motion, which allows the city to investigate the idea of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 for city polling in Toronto. 

The passing of DM23.1 doesn’t mean that 16- and 17-year-olds will get to vote in Toronto elections, but is intended to give them a say in decisions and changes made in their neighbourhoods.

The teens say the win is the first step in a larger movement to lower Canada’s voting age to 16 for municipal, provincial and federal elections. 

• WATCH — How do Canadian elections work?

City polling in Toronto

It's not yet clear exactly if the voting age for city polling will be lowered in Toronto, but the passing of DM23.1 gets the process started, including research into how it should be implemented.

Prior to the win, CBC Kids News caught up with two teens who were involved in bringing the fight to lower the voting age to their city.

That includes 16-year-old Jaden Braves, the CEO and founder of Young Politicians of Canada, who has been involved in politics for several years. 

He was the youngest person to ever be elected to the Green Party of Canada federal council. 

“But I always felt that as a young person in politics, it was hard to have my voice heard or be taken seriously,” said the Toronto 16-year-old. 

“It’s just obvious to me. Many 16-year-olds have jobs, pay taxes, use transportation and other public services. We should get a say in making decisions about the things we use.” 

So Jaden teamed up with Aleksi Toiviainen to try and change that. 

Aleksi is part of a group called Vote16 Canada. Its mission is to lower the voting age for federal, provincial and territorial elections.

“We thought: ‘Why don’t we do this at the municipal level and show the rest of the country that something like this could work at a smaller scale?’” said Jaden.

Jaden, Aleksi and several other young Canadians approached Toronto city councillors to build DM23.1 — a motion that could allow 16- and 17-year-olds to have a vote in city polling.

City polls give property owners, residents and businesses a say in changes in their neighbourhoods, like the creation of speed bumps or transportation routes. 

• A Canadian election may happen sooner than expected. Here’s why

Jaden said changing the voting age for city polling from 18 to 16 will help empower young Canadians to get involved in democracy early on. 

“It’s almost like taking those civics lessons we get in Grade 9 and 10 and applying those lessons to real life in a low-stakes environment,” he said. 

Sarah Morra, a 17-year-old who is also involved in the motion, thinks it’s a good place to start. 

“I think reducing the voting age in this low-stakes way allows youth to be more civic-minded, participate in their community and prepare themselves for higher-stakes voting,” she said. 

Sarah said she doesn’t see a big difference between a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, so it’s better to start building voting habits sooner if we can. 

Jaden made a similar argument.

“A 16-year-old can drive a car, but can’t vote in our democracy. I’d say being able to vote is far less of a risk.” 

• WATCH — How does voting work?

The municipal, provincial and federal effort

A larger effort is underway in Canada to lower the voting age to 16 in municipal, provincial and federal elections.

Eleven Canadian municipalities have passed motions on extending the voting age in some way, including Calgary, Alberta; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Pickering, Ontario.

Those local efforts are largely symbolic — it’s up to the provinces to change voting laws for local and provincial elections. But Canadian Sen. Marilou McPhedran says they still send an important message.

“These are signals to the provincial governments that a shift is happening, that the support is growing to lower the voting age to 16,” McPhedran told CBC Kids News. 

McPhedran said lowering the voting age would strengthen democracy. She is responsible for bill S-201, a bill that is active in the Senate that would, if passed, allow 16- and 17-year-old Canadians to vote in federal elections.

She said that Jaden and Sarah’s efforts in Toronto could be the most important yet in swinging the tides, since Toronto is Canada’s largest municipality. 

“If you see a significant shift in Toronto, it can inform what happens in many other parts of the country. I think Toronto is potentially a game changer,” she said. 

Arguments for and against lowering the voting age

Valere Gaspard is a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa whose research focuses on Canadian politics, including our history with voting age. 

He says Canada’s voting age hasn’t always been 18. It was 21 until 1970, when a large youth movement pushed to have it lowered. 

“A large enough amount of youth got together and pushed for it in a way that forced politicians to act to avoid the risk of destabilizing our democracy,” he said.

Today, he said there are five primary arguments made for lowering the voting age around the world: 

1. Youth aged 16-17 are just as mature and capable as 18-year-olds — Several studies support this argument, according to Gaspard. 
2. Circumstances are stable — 16- and 17-year-olds are often still in school and living at home, and may actually be more inclined to vote than 18- to 20-year-olds who may have full-time jobs and other competing priorities. 
3. Increases participation — Lowering the voting age allows more people to vote, increasing the overall vote count. Some argue this makes our democracy stronger. 
4. Enfranchises citizens — This argument states that if a group of people is asking for the right to vote, it’s better to give them that right if there isn’t strong evidence to not do it. 
5. It’s their future — Decisions around things like climate change will affect the future of today’s youth, so the more youth who can have a say in that future, the better. 

Gaspard said five common arguments against lowering the voting age are: 

1. 16- to 17-year-olds aren’t mature enough — According to Gaspard, this view is based more in public opinion than research.
2. Lower voter turnout — As stated above, lowering the voting age is likely to increase the amount of overall voters, but this is different than voter turnout, which is the proportion of those who vote out of all eligible voters. Because research shows that young people tend to vote less, lowering the voting age could decrease voter turnout. Some argue that lower voter turnouts make people see the election results as less legitimate. 
3. Temporary disenfranchisement — If the voting age is lowered federally, for example, but not provincially, a 16-year-old would be allowed to vote in one election and not another.
4. Lack of will — Not all young people care about voting in elections, so it’s safer to leave things unchanged until enough of them can demonstrate that they want to vote. Gaspard said the issue with this is that “enough” support is hard to define.
5. Youth can get involved in other ways — Those under 18 can get involved in politics in other ways, like volunteering for a political campaign, allowing them to discuss and debate issues before they have the right to vote. 

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CLARIFICATION: An update to this story on Nov. 13 made it seem like motion DM23.1 was all that was needed to change the voting age for city polling. In fact, it only gives city staff approval to research the proposal. Additional information was added on Nov. 13 to make the story more clear.

CORRECTION: Originally, we said that Brampton, Ontario and Burnaby, British Columbia were two of the 11 municipalities to pass motions to lower the voting age to 16 in some way. This was incorrect.