Now as much as I would loooooove to talk about Canadian politics and the parties and the like. That job has been more than taken care of countless other people and organizations; my absolute favorite being Last Week Tonight's delightful coverage.
So instead I will sate my urges (and spare your time) by allow this following chart to do it for me:
Now with that out of the way, I can move onto the real reason behind this posting. As it so happens, I also received a question from a certain someone, asking my opinion whether the voting age in Canada should be reduced to 16 years of age or not.
I'm gonna start this by being very frank: NO
Now I am going to tell you a story as to why. You see, every day I ride a school bus to and from my high school everyday. On said bus, we have a modicum of different students; from the city, the countryside and the suburbs. All of different educational levels from the scholars who strive for academia and those who for lack of a better phrase; could give a *.
Just ahead of where I sit, is where all of the of Gr.11 and 10 students also sit. Now from what I've seen of them (consider this my bias disclaimer), if these kids were knives I doubt they would be able to cut fish. For the most part what I hear out them is in someway or another discussing parties, sports, and smookin' dat sweeet ganja man.
"But wait..." I can hear you saying "...you don't really know them, everybody is somewhat like that when they're young". To which I agree and think is more than true and needs to be taken into account. But here is where I pull something out of my hat that might trip you up.
For you see, while I do hear them (at fairly audible tones) talking about the above. They also talk about more (I can hear your suprise). You see they also, especially in the few weeks leading up to the election, they discussed a number of different topics. Least to say I was intrigued and set up to watch
Early on I was quite hopeful, they were bringing up topics like wellfare, the Syrian conflict, immigration and other issues and just like that I wished I could get back the brain cells I lost by listening to them.
While I won't go through the specifics of what they said, but I will say that it is more than comparable to Bush-era ideaologies. They talk about these issues with seemingly no background and with a gung-ho; PATRIOT (or headstrong) attitude that has in the past has caused a multitude of problems, out of a sheer lack of empathy.
It's because of this that I don't think that people under 18 years of age should be able to vote. People do a surprising amount of growing in a very short time; becoming informed, developing their own opinions as well as building their sense of empathy and compassion. These are things I believe is very important to being a decision maker and before you can make a decision like electing someone into power, you must posses those qualities for foresight. That is why I believe that the voting age shouldn't be lowered to 16.
Congrats on getting through another one of my posts. I hope you enjoyed it and you keep checking back for more.
Today I have a treat for. Whilst puttering around the internet I found some really interesting art by a freelance illustrator by the name of Matt Dixon. I hope you share the curiosity of his Lonely Robots.
Until we meet again,
Your Humble Scribe,
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