62.5%

Roughly 62.5 percent of all eligible voters actually participated in our last federal election. In clearer numbers, of the approximately 27 million Canadians that are eligible to vote, 10 million didn't. That means that for every 10 people you know, four never voted.

The turn out in provincial and municipal elections is even worse.

What it means in stark day to day terms, there are millions of Canadians who simply do not care enough to vote. They either do not see the importance of voting, or they do not believe that their voice has value. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every single vote absolutely counts as evidenced by the many ridings that were lost (or won depending on perspective) by a couple of dozen votes, or less.

It also means that of the 62.5% that vote, if a party wins a majority of seats they do not even need to have 50% of the votes. In fact, a party can form government even if the actual majority do not vote for them. That in turn means that a party that garnered 35% of the vote could form government, again let us consider perspective. That is NOT 35% of Canadians... it is 35% of the 62.5% of people who voted. That means that around 21.9% of Canadians decided who would be our next government.

It means that the minority of people will ALWAYS set the laws, policies, and direction of the majority. Not because they actively sought the power, rather because they exercised their right to vote in the first place. They understood that having the ability to vote, having the right to vote, is a privilege the majority of people in the world do not have.

I have a hard time understanding why anyone would so freely give up their vote, so I asked people. What I heard was not only shocking to me, it also... shook my faith in Canadians as a whole.

Almost everyone that I spoke too who did not vote told me that it was because they could not understand the issues, or the information was too confusing. Every single one of them told me that it was the governments responsibility to make sure that we understood the issues.

Wait. What?

I sat there in multiple conversations and listened to adults tell me that it was the governments fault that they did not vote because the government did not do a good enough job educating them on the issues. These same adults told me that they got most of their news from social media, and then said that the only place to get any "legit" information was also on social media.

We are so screwed.

First of all, it is NOT the governments responsibility to educate us, it is our responsibility to do that as adults. It is called personal accountability and seems to be sorely lacking in modern society.

The government DOES educate us, they are called schools, and in those schools they teach things like social studies, political science, and history. We all have access in Canada to free library's and in turn to many resources where we can find information with which to inform ourselves. I suggested the same thing to the people I spoke with, know what I was told in return? That takes too much time and I can't spend the time.

No, but you can spend hours on social media being fed misinformation, doom scrolling, posting, and commenting.

We all like to lament the people that protest (regardless of the side) but at least they are engaged. They may not be informed, but they are engaged and that is at least a start. When someone chooses to become engaged they will often become more and more informed about the issue. The smart ones look at it from all sides and then make a determination (maybe 1 in 10,000 people might actually do that), the rest just sort of follow the herd. For them it is much more about "belonging" than any real desire to see change. I say that because I know that at least 37.5% of those protesters never voted and many probably never will.

I was lucky that I grew up in a family that routinely made sure we were engaged and voted. My grandmother was especially firm on this as she was alive at a time when a woman could not even open a bank account or get a job without their father's or husband's approval.

That said, if you live in Canada... you should know that we are a democracy and that means voting. If you are not prepared to engage, then frankly - how can you complain? I have heard the argument "I pay taxes" - yeah well so do the people who vote (in my experience people who vote typically complain less too).

Our ability to vote is the single most important right that we have in Canada, or any democracy. That right to vote is the reason why we have all of the other freedoms we have today.

The other thing that struck me in the conversations was how many people complained about government interference in their lives. Every single person I spoke too, voters and non, complained in one breath that the government was not doing enough for us, and in the next breath that there was too much government over-reach in our lives. Again, my mind went to wait... what?

So on one hand the government is supposed to interject in our lives, but on the other hand they are interfering. The thing is, when I asked people to nail things down for me, they couldn't. Take social media as an example, every single person said that the government should more heavily regulate social media - but they cannot do anything to interfere with free speech. They said that social media companies should be punished for what they are doing to society. Yet every single one of them is active on social media...

This entire notion of wanting everything, always, right now and the absolute lack of personal accountability is mind numbingly outrageous. If you do not like social media, do not use social media. If you do not like a song, do not listen to it. If you do not like a comedian, do not watch them.

This idea that somehow the world is supposed to bow to our personal whims and preferences, government is supposed to protect us from ourselves, and we have no actual personal responsibility for any of it, it is ALWAYS someone else's fault... mind numbing in the sheer stupidity of that belief.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the dangers of A.I. and the impact on society. Given how easily fooled and manipulated most people seem to be by social media, meme's, and photoshop in the last 25 or so years, I would have to agree. A.I. poses a genuine threat. Not because of A.I. in of itself, rather because if we cannot even tell the difference between reality and illusion now...

We have to educate ourselves, and that means do not believe everything you read. If you see it on social media (even this post) DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH and become informed. We do not have to know everything about everything, but we should at the very least make sure we are informed before posting, commenting, and in particular - sharing.

I vote, every single opportunity I have because it is a privilege that billions of people around the world do not have. I vote because I care about this country and I care about the future. I vote because I am an adult who wants to have a say in his future. I vote because I can.

The election is not for another year. We need to start engaging now or we risk letting 20% of the population decide the future for the other 80%.