There’s absolutely no argument denying youth the right to vote that wasn’t equally invalid when it was used against other groups. There are uncaring, naive, uninformed, and stupid people in every group, but denying the whole group is wrong. It’s also going to be inconsequential -teenagers make up a tiny fraction of the population. The main reason to do it is that voting young predicts lifetime engagement in the voting process - so limiting it is a bad idea for that reason alone.

I’ll go even further and say that anyone with the mental capacity to be able to follow the rules and instructions, maintain decorum in a polling station, and properly fill out a valid ballot should be allowed a voice in elections. That’s the same criteria we use for legal adults.

They’re a tiny percentage and then how many of them will even vote, too? I agree. Let the few who care have a vote.

All 16 year olds pay into the programs that support the few 90 year olds. They’re a pyramid scheme that takes from the young and gives to the old. 16 year olds are old enough to pay taxes and they are old enough to vote.

No vote, no taxes.

Canada’s OAS and CPP are not a pyramid scheme, they’re based on what you actually put in and guaranteed.

They don’t have the solvency issues that US Social Security has.

This idea that old people care only about themselves is wrong, and very much a young person’s view. As you get older it’s not uncommon to care less about getting things for yourself (what are you going to do with it?) and more about the people and world you’re going to leave behind. An old person who appreciates the value of education or healthcare doesn’t stop wanting that for the country just because they’re soon going to be gone.

No. Because the boomer generation was so massive that their voting power surpassed any other generation. Even if they don’t even all go vote, they still buried the X and millennials combined.

The comments in this thread are wild. So many saying practically the same thing. Polar opposite vote results. Lol.

You could post some numbers that back you that kinda crazy take…

My main point:

No vote, no tax.

I could defintely see 16 year olds voting against their best interests, such as lower drinking ages, less school years, easier school circulums. Ending school at grade 10 might sound like a great idea to a 16 year old and the mp pitching it could convince older canadians it would save a lot of taxes as well, all well significantly impacting that new generations education potential.

Let’s lower the voting age cap actually. Also the age cap for holding positions in politics.

Some people aren’t mature enough at 56 and they’re still allowed a vote.

Honestly if you can get a drivers licence at 16 you should be able to vote too. And just because we open it up to them doesn’t mean they’ll all automatically actually do it.

It’s a real weak excuse too, because the lazy and ignorant ones are welcome to not vote as usual, but maybe some informed students will. Of course there will also be plenty of conservative weirdos pushing their worldview on their children who will push them to also vote conservative, but hey thems the breaks.

I mean, you realize where the word “boomers” comes from, right?

Is that worse than the adults in Alberta repeatedly voting in governments that allow foreign companies to take Alberta oil out of the province for fractions of a penny on the dollar while failing to put away sufficient reserve funds to clean up their messes in the province leaving those adult voters and their future children holding a many tens of billions of dollars cleanup bill?

I don’t know for you but the school parliament give me a pretty good lesson on the actual political landscape : elected people don’t change shit

I would be fine with not charging workers under 18 tax.

When I was that age saving for university wasn’t easy and staying life off with a bunch of debt and no guaranteed job isn’t fun.

No, we shouldn’t. More voting isn’t necessarily better. It’s similar to the arguments people make for mandatory voting, which is also a bad idea.

We don’t need more noise in the voting process.

If anything I’d want to restrict the franchise to people with a certain level of knowledge but I don’t think it’s possible to do that in a just way.

But they DO pay tax so they should have a voice since they are being taxed without representation.

no. most 16-year-olds don’t know anything. yeah yeah most people don’t know anything in the first place, but teenagers know even less.

all this is going to do is boost whatever vote their family has