Photo: flickr/Andrei P

The Toronto mayoral race just became interesting for all youth in Canada with Morgan Baskin, an 18 year-old Toronto native, entering her bid in late February. Canada has incredibly low rates of women’s and youth participation in politics, both in elected representation and voter turnout.

What makes Baskin’s bid even more gripping is that if she were to win, she would be the youngest female politician voted into a mayoral position in Canada’s history; Christine Nussey of Rose-Blanche Harbour le Cou who was elected at 25 in 2009 would become the runner up.

There are many barriers holding young women back from entering into the political realm, including the public’s false sentiment of youth apathy towards political issues due to the fact that youth have become publicly invisible and are substantially under-represented in formal politics. The Young Women Civic Leaders needs assessment identified that youth generally, and young women as well, are very informed and engaged with political issues, often more so than older generations.

However, they tend to participate informally by volunteering in their high school and university years but this tends to diminish as they grow older and not translate into formal participation in politics. Youth engagement also looks different from previous generations because it tends to occur online as opposed to partaking in formal campaigns/parties/elections and political policy-making because most youth cited that they feel completely alienated from all of its processes, and justifiably so.

Already Baskin’s media coverage and the questions posed to her on her Tumblr, prove how youth engagement is discouraged and stigmatized. Youth are generally viewed as not qualified to run for political positions, thus disincentivizing any further engagement through voting. But in Baskin’s
interviews, she highlights why youth engagement is more important than ever: the trajectory of success that was promised to us by our parents is no longer a viable option for most of us millenials.

Owning property, having a family and the ability to gain and manage successful careers doesn’t exist for our generation the way it did for the boomers. A campaign which started out of UBC called Generation Squeeze details this fact extensively: Canadian youth are obtaining unprecedented levels of higher education alongside equally unprecedented levels of debt in inflated housing markets and increasingly precarious labour markets. We are told to get an education, but can’t afford one. We’re told to get jobs, but need to work for free to get our foot in the door. We’re told to put our noses to the grindstone and work hard, but for far less stability and benefits than ever before due to an intense depletion of Canada’s social safety net.

Our generation will be the first in recent history to be worse off than our parents and with increasing income inequality, this is a harsh reality for most millenials. The future prospects are even bleaker for marginalized groups within the youth community, such as women, First Nations, immigrants, those who are disabled and those with a generally lower socio-economic status. Youth political representation is therefore becoming evermore crucial.

Indeed, the tides seem to be slowly changing in Canada amongst women and youth, despite the last federal election where youth voter turnout was a disappointing 38.8 per cent. Notably, two young MP’s were voted into parliament: Laurin Liu and Pierre-Luc Dusseault, both under 21 when elected and both
making history. Despite the fact that only 16 per cent of all mayors in Canada are women and also that only 26 per cent of city councils are made up by women, the Tri-Cities area has increased its gender representation to parity for their elected members in both Port Moody and Surrey. Baskin can therefore be seen not only as a trailblazer but also as a part of larger grassroots shifts in public discourse surrounding women’s formative/substantive equality and youth’s right to political representation.

Whether Baskin wins or not, her bid and her campaign send a message to all Canadian youth that they have the right and responsibility to be involved in decision-making, policy-making and taking on real leadership roles in their communities. As the Young Women’s Civic Leaders social media campaign
#MsMayor proves, young women have a lot to say about what they would like to see change in their communities. This is further shown by their partnership with Women Transforming Cities, whose diverse members and volunteers strive towards impactful policy changes at the municipal level for all women in their community by hosting conferences, events and cafes. Women’s and youth civic engagement and political representation is absolutely vital to achieving these goals.

Canada as a (supposed) representative democracy is undermined if women’s and youth’s needs and opinions — and all marginalized groups more generally — are ignored by politicians and policy-makers, or if these positions cannot be filled by informed and engaged citizens in these groups who want to make and effect change themselves. If women and youth are continually stigmatized and their perspectives de-legitimized, then there is something seriously broken within our political systems and therefore a fundamental threat to our democracy exists indeed.

Jessica Knowler is a Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies student at Simon Fraser University. She is also a committee member for Young Women Civic Leaders and outreach committee member of Women Transforming Cities, both working towards improving representation and municipal policy for women and youth in the Vancouver and Tri-Cities areas.

Photo: flickr/Andrei P