If you sat out the last election because every party disappointed you, one ballot seemed meaningless, or abstaining felt like a protest, I have one question: what did you expect your absence to change?
Someone is going to govern you regardless. If you can reasonably vote, you have a moral responsibility to help decide who that will be.
An uncast ballot cannot explain itself. Without an organized boycott and specific demands, politicians cannot know whether you stayed home over housing costs, disliked the candidates, or simply forgot. In 2025, about 56 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 24 voted, compared with roughly 78 per cent of those aged 65 to 74.
Politicians can see that turnout gap, but they cannot see a demand in it.
To young people who say politicians need to listen, we have better ways to demand attention than staying home. In 2012, Quebec students went on strike against tuition hikes, and the government elected that fall cancelled them. In Nepal last year, young protesters forced the prime minister’s resignation and an early election; voters subsequently rejected the old political establishment.
The results varied, but none of these young people waited for politicians to guess what they wanted. They organized, made demands, and, when the chance came, turned public anger into votes.
Perhaps those who are choosing not to vote don’t see absence as an intended message but simply believe one vote changes nothing. It probably will not decide an election; no one seriously promises otherwise. But Kant offered a useful test of a principle: whether it could hold if everyone followed it.
In 2025, almost 20 million Canadians voted. Had they all dismissed their ballots as too insignificant to matter, there would have been no electorate to choose a government. The argument depends entirely on other people rejecting it.
It’s also important to note that voting does not mean loving the choices presented, as an election is not a request to certify that a candidate is perfect. Sometimes it really is a choice between the lesser of two evils, but the worse candidate will not disappear because you stay home, and other voters will decide who wins.
Choosing the least harmful candidate also does not mean promising never to criticize them. You can protest, organize, run for office, and work to put better names on the next ballot. Elections are imperfect, but they give public dissatisfaction consequences, as leaders who ignore voters can lose their jobs.
We also shouldn’t be so casual about the right to vote itself. For centuries, subjects lived under monarchs without any meaningful say in their government. In Canada, many women gained the federal vote only in 1918, and First Nations people could only vote without needing to surrender their legal status in 1960. Taking a global perspective, the V-Dem Institute estimates that 74 per cent of the world’s population live under autocracy today.
As the daughter of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, I know that holding elections and offering people a genuine choice are very different things. There is something perverse about enjoying the latter and considering it too much trouble to use.
To my generation: we don’t lack opinions about how this country should be governed. Let us be just as willing to share the responsibility. Protest, volunteer, organize, and, if the choices are not good enough, help put better people on the ballot, then show up to vote.
You are not above politics because you refuse to participate. You remain subject to its every decision; you’ve just merely surrendered your share in making them.
Alexandra Gromova is a fourth-year Political Studies student and one of The Journal’s Features Editors.
Tags
Activism, Student voters, Voter Turnout, Voting
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Peter
Participation is a prequisite for a strong democracy. Voting is only one part of ongoing government. Politicians still need your feedback & support after election day. Your voice is important. As one longtime politician pointed out “You can’t do it alone”.