Allow 16 year olds to vote in municipal elections, say conference delegates
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 21:07:46 +0000
The province should change legislation to lower the voting age for local government elections to 16 years old and extend to permanent residents the right to vote, according to delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference.
Resolutions on those topics were endorsed at the annual convention in Vancouver on Thursday morning.
Duncan Coun. Jenni Capps argued to her fellow delegates that young people will be capable and conscientious voters, and have shown themselves to be willing to step up and cast votes in other communities where voting ages were lowered.
“Young people are begging for this opportunity, and I think it’s time we give it a try,” Capps said.
Cariboo Regional District Area L director Willow MacDonald said it is not the voter’s age that matters, but rather who they listen to as elected officials.
“If we want to engage our young people, we can get to our young people and listen to them and make them feel like they are participants in this conversation. That is our responsibility, not the government’s responsibility to make sure they can vote,” she said.
Saanich Mayor Fred Haynes countered, “I think if we’re going to engage in conversations we need to have — and they want to be engaged — they should be allowed to vote.”
A few delegates expressed concern about people as young as 16 being informed enough to vote. Jordan Rohatynski, who is in his 20s and a new councillor in the District of Wells, was one of them.
“I’ve known I wanted to be a politician for 20 years now, and at 16 I was not ready, and I did not understand the scope of what I was voting for,” he said. He suggested that parents might influence how teens vote.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, whose council put forward a resolution to lower the voting age to 16, argued that voters in general are not informed enough, regardless of age.
Helps said millions of young people around the world are demonstrating for climate action and speaking articulately about the kind of future they want.
“Those are precisely the types of qualities we want in our voters,” she said.
A resolution on allowing permanent residents to vote in local government elections went to an electronic vote, where it was endorsed by 58 per cent of delegates.
“When I speak with permanent residents in our community, they are engaged in what’s happening,” said New Westminster Coun. Nadine Nakagawa, who sponsored the resolution. “They want to be involved and they have opinions and ideas. In a time of low voter turnout, when people are cynical and disillusioned, this is an opportunity to ask the province to expand enfranchisement.”
Sharmarke Dubow, a Victoria councillor, said permanent residents are contributing members of society who have been in the country for many years, but despite their contributions, they are being excluded. Dubow said when he was a permanent resident, he was actively engaged in his community, but was unable to vote.
“This will not water down citizenship or weaken our citizenship. This is an opportunity for folks who live in our community to be extended the right to vote at the municipal level,” he said.
A resolution to shorten the waiting period for new B.C. residents to vote from six months to 30 days was defeated.
Other resolutions that were passed on Thursday include:
• Changing the necessary legislation to allow elected local government officials to participate in the municipal pension plan.
• Putting in place a mechanism to resolve conflict of interest complaints through a municipal conflict of interest commissioner or expand the powers of the B.C. conflict of interest commissioner. Of note, a resolution to encourage municipalities to adopt conflict of interest rules failed.
• Dedicated, predictable and secure provincial funding for emergency sexual assault response.
• Provincial legislation to enforce federal regulations that require cannabis operations to install filtration to prevent odours from escaping.