Aude Simon, CUTV

October 21, 2022

MONTREAL -- Montreal wants to improve voter turn out among youth by encouraging increased participation in elections amongst this demographic. 

The city is seeking input from individuals and organizations through a form to seek insight on how to address and improve this issue. Opinions, ideas and recommendations from the public and organizations were provided during this meeting.

Montreal social worker Karine Joly said voting has to be made simple and people have to understand how to sign up for voting, including when and where to go vote. She also said people have to know the choices presented to them – who can they vote for.

Joly said the public must understand what party makes decisions municipally, provincially and federally, who makes decisions for the boroughs and neighbourhoods and what do the elected representatives do? 

She said the choice has to be significant in the medium term and the long term. "Why should people vote?" she said. "What will be the impact of their vote? What decisions will be made on the municipal levels? Will their vote make a difference?" Joly added, expressing these are questions that should be easily clarified for voters.

Joly said that Google trends demonstrate that the public is often confused about voting by anticipation, but also where to go to vote. She said that information about each parties' goals are and what Montreal needs should be posted, shown and talked about regularly and not just around election time.

She said that the representatives should take the youth's needs into consideration more and that youth are often forgotten, leading to the youth not being interested in politics. Joly said youth have a difficult time to get involved because they feel their opinion doesn't matter to the different parties

Student and youth representative, Fatima Bah, said that to hold meetings like this to have more input on what could change is great, but they needs to be better organized and at times where most people can bring their input, such as at school. She said a meeting being held on a Monday at 9 a.m., such as this meeting, is counter-productive.

She said that electoral offices never come to high school, colleges or universities to speak about their goals and get the youth more informed. Bah added that electoral parties and representatives only talk to people who already vote, not people who could vote or need information.

"[The] youth is not being heard, and it makes them not want to vote," said Bah. She said that social media is only used as a publicity stunt and not as a way to reach, which feels insincere.

Montrealer Xavier Fisher said that if Montreal wants more diversity in voters, the city has to think about the accomodation of others, clarifying not white Quebecers, and not only seniors. "How will these people understand what is being said?," he asked.

Fisher said the city needs much more diversity represented on teams, including representative, elections and officials.

Mohamed Mimoun, from the Forum Jeunes St-Michel said information has to be made more interesting for the youth and that it has to be adapted for the youth, adding that the process of voting is not attractive to the youth.

He said that voting should be more in tune with technology and social media, providing an example of allowing youth to take pictures to entice them to come voting and make others vote.

Mimoun said youth has to be consulted for the campaigns.