A bill aimed at lowering the legal voting age 16 years old is back in the Canadian Senate.
The move to lower the age limit resurfaced in the senate with a first reading on September 30, 2020 and continued with a second reading last Friday. The bill, S-209 (43rd Parliament, 2nd Session), would lower the current voting age of 18 years old to 16 years of age.
People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier posted a copy of the bill on Facebook over the weekend. He called the move an attempt by the Liberal party to unfairly secure wins in future elections.
“Another attempt by the Liberals and their Far Left allies to change the rules of the electoral system to their advantage so they can permanently stay in power,” Bernier wrote. “We are witnessing a slow-motion coup d’état.”
Senator Terry Mercer of Nova Scotia, a Senate appointee of Prime Minister Jean Chretien in 2003, supported the move during the second reading on Friday.
“Successful political parties and successful political candidates, both provincially and federally, know that engaging young people is providing energy,” said Mercer. “They bring their ideas. The engagement of young people puts energy into politics.
“As I said, pass this bill and make it law, and you will notice a huge difference in the next two elections and elections beyond that.”
The bill was tabled by Senator Marilou McPhedran earlier this year. McPhedran was named to the senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
This is not the first time lowering the age limited has been brought forward in Canada.
What does the rest of Canada think?
You can view the bill here: https://parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/bill/S-209/first-reading
Watch the second reading question period below:
Don Peterson
November 10, 2020 at 1:42 am
Ryan, I do not like this one bit … but, your report did not include the Bill Number, so I can’t easily find it to read it myself.
Is Bernier possibly correct is hypothesizing that the age 16-18 age group will suddenly become the sage group for all Parties to woo to win elections? Did this happen when the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18?
Is this a Bill that came from the House of Commons? … or did it originate in the Senate; quite an unusual process, I wonder …?? What next? Possible schedule??
Is this really a ‘softening up’ process to get us to accept that ‘Mature Minors’, possibly as young as age 11, could sign up and get themselves injected with the long-awaited COVID-19 ‘vaccine du jour’, without their parents’ being involved beforehand? Oh, by the way, because Trudeau’s (Executive-style) Government gave the Pharmaceutical companies a waiver of liability, only the Parents (and the Minor) will bear the mis-adventure costs (physical, emotional, psychological, and financial) arising from any of the many potential Adverse Events.
Keep digging !
Don Peterson
Ryan Craswell
November 10, 2020 at 2:04 am
Bill S-209. Let me find it and add to article with YouTube link.
Jeffrey Johnson
December 14, 2020 at 7:51 pm
This is the most ridiculous idea ever. The argument that somehow starting voting at 16 instead of 18 will create life long voters is without any substantiation. Yet the undue influence of left leaning teachers will undoubtably have a massive influence on the majority of these kids. You might as well just give each teacher 30 votes. The human brain doesn’t fully mature until the late 20s, so if anything we should be raising the voting age. However, if a person can drink and go to war I believe they should be allowed to vote as well. At least at 18, the vast majority of kids are away from the authoritarian influence of their teacher’s politics. And as far as 16 year olds being able to vote because of work and taxes I have a much simpler solution. Raise the tax exempt income level to $20,000. This will alleviate most student’s from any taxes while helping working poor families by keeping more of their own money and simplifying their taxes. But when has a Liberal solution ever included a tax cut???