“I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
- Charles De Gaulle
Let’s face it. Democracy is over 2000 years old. It’s getting a tad musty. And in Canada, especially, it’s also taken for granted. In the 2006 City of Kingston Municipal Election, voter turnout was an abysmal 39.9%. (City of Kingston) 6 in 10 of us couldn’t be bothered. That’s less than half of our eligible voting population deciding the political destiny of our city for four years at a time.
So who’s to blame? Well, it’s not “the Man”. Voter turnout for over 30s in recent federal elections has been well over 50%. It’s the under 20 crowd that can’t seem to make it to the polls.
But you can’t just dismiss youth as ignorant hoodlums, either. The same Statistics Canada report found young people in their 20s to have the same level of political engagement outside the voting process as older generations. (Milan)
So why do young people avoid the polls, then? Is it apathy? Cynicism? A lack of good candidates?
To be honest, we don’t know exactly why it is, although we certainly have all of those things in spades. But for a second, imagine if you could harness young people’s capacity for and interest in activism and exercise it through our electoral system. Would that not be a better Canada? A more equal Canada? It would be a nation where one person really did mean one vote, irrespective of age. Where politicians don’t need to guess at what youth want – they just ask them.
There is no doubt Canadian youth are turning away from the system. Maybe the reason behind this isn’t video games or MTV or poor education. Maybe it’s because Canadian politics are barren of new blood, young minds, and fresh ideas.
And so it came to be, with this in mind and voter turnout steadily dropping, that four young men came together to try and put the spice back in Democracy.
Kingston, Ontario is a quiet town. For people who have never visited, the first thing they usually notice is history – and that’s oddly fitting, since even though tourists and students trade the city between themselves every six months, not much changes here.
But this year, things are going to change. For the first time in Kingston history, four 20-year olds – strictly speaking, two are 19 – will run for mayor: Jamie Emerton, John Last, Kevin Lavalley, and Nathan Wilson – four friends, turned bitter enemies in the arena of politics.
What do we hope to accomplish? What can we possibly achieve?
Well, we’re glad you asked.
For one, we hope to entertain. Municipal politics, we hope to prove, are not dry and boring, discussed in beige-coloured hallways by long-winded academics. Municipal politics are a dog-eat-dog boxing match for all the marbles. Like all politics, it has a penchant for the dramatic – so who are we to deny it drama, and a stage on which to lay its scene?
But that’s not our only motive. We also hope to educate. After all, the four of us are what many would call “youths”. We’re part of that demographic that’s so uninterested in elections and voting. We’re also all patriots, who love the fact that we live in a free and democratic country where anyone, regardless of race, religion, and, yes, age, can aspire to hold public office. And we want to remind our fellow “youths” of this fact. We want to see them engage again, so that their voices, which are also our voices, are not continually marginalized and ignored.
We believe strongly that the best way to reach an audience is to make them laugh. If you entertain someone, you’ve got their attention – plus, in this day and age, internet comedy spreads faster than that chain email saying you’re about to die (don’t worry, you’re not going to die). Even if your audience is stifiling a giggle, that means they’ve heard you – and you’ve got a better chance getting through to them that way then boring them from a soapbox.
We’re not saying that traditional politics don’t have their place – they do. But in a time of 39% voter turnout, we need a new way to reach the masses – young people’s solutions to a young person’s problem. Fresh ideas, young minds, and new blood.
It is with these goals in mind that we four have decided to attempt a candidacy for the 2010 Kingston Municipal Election.
And as you might have guessed, that’s not all. We’re also going to film it.
Every part of this election, every aspect of our run to be mayor, will be covered here, on this website, for the entertainment of whoever cares to make the trek to this far corner of the internet. If we’re lucky, in watching our adventures along the way, our audience will learn a thing or two. It’s even possible that at the end of it all, they’ll actually turn up to vote.
After all, wouldn’t it be great if we could finally give Democracy the fanbase it deserves?
