{"id":13497,"date":"2016-02-24T21:41:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T02:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13497"},"modified":"2016-02-24T21:41:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T02:41:17","slug":"williams-student-spearheads-campaign-to-lower-voting-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/williams-student-spearheads-campaign-to-lower-voting-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams student spearheads campaign to lower voting age"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you can file your taxes at the tender age of 15, surely you should have a say in how the government spends it and cast your vote, according to Aurora\u2019s Ben Williamson.<\/p>\n

Ben, a 16-year-old student at Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School is spearheading an online petition to encourage the Government to lower the voting age to 16.<\/p>\n

Launched during the heat of last year\u2019s Federal Election, Ben says he hopes the petition will gain traction and spur change. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is interesting to me that a 15-year-old can file their income tax and be charged for the most severe crimes, and you can even drop out of school at 16, but when it comes to the biggest decision in Canada\u2019s democracy, you can\u2019t vote,\u201d say Ben. \u201cWe can drive a car, we can file income tax, be charged as an adult in criminal court for the most severe crimes. We\u2019re seen as adults in that sense, but we\u2019re seen as childish when it comes to voting. That doesn\u2019t make a whole lot of sense.<\/p>\n

\u201c18-year-olds were voting [in the last election] and some of them were acting as childish, if not more childish, than the 16-year-olds that I know.\u201d
\nBut therein lies the issue: how can you make sure that people as young as 16 will take the vote seriously?<\/p>\n

That is one of the biggest challenges Ben says he has encountered on his mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the arguments that have been raised to me are the youth just do not vote and the voting age isn\u2019t going to make a difference, or we are not mature enough, we\u2019re not ready, we just don\u2019t know, or we\u2019re too childish,\u201d he says. \u201cTo that I would say it is time that we are seen as active, valued members of Canadian society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, Scotland took a stand in this regard giving 17-year-olds the right to vote in their referendum on whether or not the country should leave the United Kingdom and that brought out some interesting results that could have an impact in Canada, says Williamson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think political parties would have to gear their platforms more to the younger generation because I think one of the common arguments among youth is people our age don\u2019t care because the time they reach 18, what have [the politicians] done for them? We are the next generation in politics and we need to make sure the decisions that are being made are the right ones because Parliament makes decisions for the future of Canada and it is us that will take the torch when we\u2019re the ones who run for public office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure Canada is the country we would like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

To view Williamson\u2019s petition, visit: chn.ge\/1O6Pdt0<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you can file your taxes at the tender age of 15, surely you should have a say in how the government spends it and cast your vote, according to Aurora\u2019s Ben Williamson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2016-02-25-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3vH","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 06:05:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}